OUR ISLAND STORY ‘

THE TENTH CHAETER

The Press in Prince Edward Island

When Lieutenant Governor Fanning came to Prince Edward ,_ '

Island in the year 1786 he found that‘the Legislative and Govern- _mental records had not been printed and that all, from the begin- ning, were in a state of confusion- Early in the year 1787 he in- duced Mr. James Robertson, a printer residing in Halifax, to come to Charlottetown for the purpose of printing the statutes and orders—in-Council that had previously been passed. Shortly after his arrival, onvor about the 15th of October, 1787, Mr. RobertsOn began the publication of “The Royal Commercial Gazette and Intelligencer.” This was the first newspaper published in the Island. It was a semi—oflicial journal, quarto size, three columns per page, each column about ten inches long ;‘and it contained the proclamations of the Lieutenant Governor, other official adver- tizements, a few local advertizements, a few paragraphs of local news, and the British and foreign news brought by the latest arrived ship from England, to the limit of its remaining space. The greatest public service rendered by it was the publication Of the terms offered by Lieutenant Governor Patterson according to which a number of United Empire Loyalists were induced to come to this Island, and the means it afforded for the agitation of their claims upon the proprietors for grants of land. As a result of this agitation many of the best families who came from New England at the close of the reVolutionary war stayed on the Island, helped to subdue the forest and to maintain an ordered govern- ment.

How long the Royal Commercial Gazette and Intellegencer _ continued to be published cannot now be precisely stated. . It was f

succeeded by “The Royal {Gazette and Miscellany of the Island

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