Yet, in the face of all enmity and of such friendship, it has ever
held on its calm way, never deserting the public cause,--as little
extreme in its opposition as in its support of those in power; so that
its foes never forgot it, when they prevailed, but its friends
repeatedly. To estimate the value of its influence, during its long
career, would be impossible,--so much of right has it brought about,
so much of wrong defeated.
Though it came hither with our Congress, a newspaper had once before
been set up here,--either upon the expectation created by the laying
of certain corner-stones, in 1792, that the Government would fix
itself at this spot, or through an odd local faith in the dreams of
some ancient visionary dwelling hard by, who had, many years before,
foretold this as the destined site of a great imperial city, a second
Rome, and so had bestowed upon Goose Creek the name of Tiber, long
before this was Washington. The founder of this Pre-Adamite journal
was Mr. Benjamin Moore; its name, "The Washington Gazette"; its issue,
semi-weekly; its annual price, four dollars; and the two leading
principles which, in that day of the infancy of political "platforms,"
his salutatory announced, were, first, "to obtain a living for
himself," and, secondly, "to amuse and inform his fellow-mortals." How
long this day-star of our journalism shone, before night again
swallowed up the premature dawn, cannot now be stated. It must have
been published at what was then expected to be our city, but is our
penitentiary, Greenleaf's Point.
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