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Early Philadelphia Publishers 535 wards, and as that City, besides its frequent Intercourse with Europe, derives a continued Trade with the West India Islands, and also has a considerable Commerce with the rest of the Colonies on the Continent; We Therefore fixed upon it as the properest Place, and more commodiously situated than any other, for carry- ing on the various correspondences, which the Nature of the Work renders necessary. ' What the writer says of magazines applies equally well to books at an early period, even in the reference to the West Indies, which in colonial days received a considerable part of their publications from this country. Bradford, then, was succeeded by a long line of illustrious printers and publishers; for after the famous trial of Peter Zenger at New York in 1734-35 {the Brief Narrative of which became the most famous publication issued in America before the Farmer's Letters) , a trial which virtually decided the freedom of the press in America, there was no more necessity for such cases as his. By 1770 Robert Bell had gained the reputation of being the most progressive publisher in the colonies. Then came the Revolution, the sum total of its effects being a power- ful factor in the rise to leadership of Philadelphia. Bell was ably succeeded by Robert Aitken. When Jeremy Belknap of Massachusetts was seeking a publisher in 1782, Ebenezer Hazard, an authority for the period, pronounced Aitken the best publisher in America. He was followed by Mathew Carey, one of the greatest publishers, all things considered in their true historical perspective, yet produced by this country. But while Philadelphia was thus climbing to pre-eminence and weathering the Revolution, with its marked emphasis on publications of a purely utilitarian and controversial nature, other printing centres were springing up over the country. New York had received the disgruntled Bradford, who in 1694 issued Keith's Truth Advanced, according to Hildebum the first book to appear in that city. Both New York and Phila- delphia were, in one respect, at a disadvantage as compared to Boston in the circulation of their publications, in that the population they supplied was much less homogeneous. As early as 1708, at least, a Dutch book, Falckner's Grondlycke ' The American Weekly Mercury, 6 Nov., 1740.