The Hillsborough Recorder

From the Washington City Gazette.

The Press.—The radical hostility of tyrants to the circulation of thought, is strongly depicted in the reply of Sir William Berkley, governor of Virginia, to certain questions relating to that colony, propounded from abroad in 1670.

'I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years: for learning has brought disobedience and heresy, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!'

What an admirable text for the holy alliance! What a consoling reflection for the editor of a free paper to know, that monarchs at the head of mighty armies, dread the combination and array of the simple letters of the alphabet, subsisting on bloodless ink, and quartered on virgin paper.

There is something military in the art of printing. The line, the column, and the square, they not belong alike to the nomenclature of printing and of war. On the other hand, how did the army of France and the navy of England prosper until they resorted to the press. Punning aside, the similitude is impressive enough. Typos, like soldiers, may be almost as readily employed against civil liberty, as for national independence.

While the editors of the Gazette were on the subject, they might have mentioned (and they would have mentioned if they had thought of it.) that some who ridicule and lash the emperor of Austria, because of his fears that his subjects may become too wise, have made it penal in other countries to teach persons to read. The principle of tyranny does not rest on the color of men; and the necessity of keeping slaves ignorant is the same every where—just as rightful in the dominions of Austria, as in the British West Indies and the United States, &c. Let us be content, and not blame others for doing that which we are doing ourselves.—[Niles' Reg.