In England the first of the Stamp Acts (I712) dimmed the brilliance of the first golden-age in London. [...] During the latter part of the eighteenth century the press of the new American reIUJblic was in many respects more dynamic and less fettered than the mother press in England. [...] In less botanical terms the 1752 news sbeet issued by John Bushell in Halifax bad evolved because of such British events as the Royal Letters of the days of Agincourt and after, the introduction of Caxton's printing press into England in 1478, the transfonnation of private news letters into the Corantos, Relations, Intelligences, Gazettes and Mercuries of the 1500's, and t.he establishment of the [...] Thus, along with the officers of govern· ment and the Jaw, and with the joiner, the blacksmith, the linen draper, the tallow candler, the cabinet·maker and the soap maker, the newspaper printer·editor was quick to practise his profession wherever new communities sprang up. [...] Although it survived only until 1812 the Guardian exhibited the rabid political partisanship that distin guished the journals of the second press period from the pioneer news sheets of the first.