University of Virginia Library

Proposals of Nine Printers for A New Edition of the Journals of the Continental Congress, 1785.
by
Edmund P. Dandridge, Jr.

In August of 1785 the Continental Congress of the United States, feeling that there should be a cumulative, indexed edition of its Journals, authorized the Secretary of Congress, Charles Thomson, to advertise 'for proposals from the Printers to publish a New Edition of the Journals in folio, Congress

taking 1000 copies.'[1] Accordingly Thomson inserted the following notice in newspapers in the principal cities of the young republic:

Nine printers replied with proposals that fulfilled all, or almost all, of Thomson's requirements.[3] From the replies a number of interesting facts about the printing trade in America in the late 18th century may be ascertained. All of the bidders were concerned, of course, with costs of the printing of the job; some mentioned costs of indexing and binding. Most of them spoke of paper and its availability, and had something to say about type. One or two referred to proofing, and almost all gave some idea of the speed at which they hoped to be able to work. All but one of them submitted specimens of type and workmanship.

I.

Since all of the printers did not quote specifically on all the financial aspects of the task and none gave any final quotation for the whole edition, it is impossible to make any comparisons of their estimates for the complete job. It is, however, possible to examine their quotations for printing and for the cost of paper.[4]

The two highest bids for printing were made by John Dunlap of Philadelphia, founder of the Pennsylvania Packet and for several years prior to 1785 one of several public printers to the Continental Congress, and by Isaac Collins, printer to the state of New Jersey. They both estimated $12 per sheet for the printing of one thousand copies. Dunlap added $6 for 'two perfect Reams' of paper; and Collins requested an advance for two hundred thirty-three reams at $3 a ream. Dunlap noted that 'the above Price has been made moderate, in the Expectation that the Number of Copies, which will be printed above those ordered by Congress, may sell so as to make Amends, by a small Profit to the Printer.' Another high bid was made by Charles Gist of Philadelphia, who had the backing of Timothy Pickering, then Quartermaster-General of the United States Army and later Secretary of State, in a letter recommending his work and his personal qualifications to Congress. Gist's price of £6.10 ($17) included the cost of the paper.

Francis Childs of New York, a protegé of Benjamin Franklin, quoted £6 in 'New York Currency' (about $15) in Pica, or £5.10 (about $13.70) in English, including the cost of paper, and noted that 'if the Journals should make 5 Volumes in English—They would only make 4 in Pica.' When Samuel Loudon, a Whig printer of New York, offered his estimate of $8 per sheet for the printing, he suggested three grades of paper priced for two reams and two quires at $4.25 for 'middling,' $5.50 for the 'best,' and $7 for the 'finest.'

The low bids were sent in by Bennett Wheeler, publisher and bookseller of Providence, Rhode Island, and public printer to his own state, and Colonel Eleazer Oswald of New York, one-time public printer in Philadelphia and founder in that city in 1782 of the Independent Gazeteer: or the Chronicle of

Freedom. Both bids, Wheeler's at $8 and Oswald's at $8.50 per thousand sheets, included the cost of the paper. Oswald, however, submitted his bid by the single sheet, rather than on the basis of 1000 sheets as the others had done, and gave quotations for three different sizes—Law Folio, Demy Folio, and Royal Quarto, at three farthings, seven-eighths of one penny, and one penny half-penny per sheet, respectively, 'Pennsylvania currency.' The corresponding dollar values were about $8.50, $9.60, and $16.60 on the basis of 1000 copies.

One bidder, James Adams, the first printer in Delaware, who had attempted unsuccessfully, a few years earlier, to establish a newspaper at Wilmington, declined to mention specific sums of money, but included in his proposals the following remarks about how his bid could be determined: 'Now, Sir, my Proposals concerning the above mention'd Business, are as follows, viz. That after you fix on the Type you would have the Work printed on, and the Size of the Paper, the Printer or Printers who proposes to do the Work should inform you what his Price by the Sheet, for one thousand Copies will be, exclusive of the Paper, as there is no other Way with Certainty to come to the Knowledge what the printing of the Whole will come to, as it is not known how much it will make; and if he is a Person of good Character in his Profession, I hereby promise, to do the Work considerably cheaper, Provided you will allow me to carry it on here in Wilmington. . . .'

Concerning the cost of forming and printing the index, the comments of the printers were varied. Dunlap stated that 'A person of unquestionable Abilities will be employed to make out a complete Index, the Cost of which cannot be ascertained until it is finished, but Care shall be taken to have it done on reasonable Terms. . . .' Childs offered to print it 'in a small neat type at £5 [$12.50] per sheet,' while Gist estimated the cost at £9 ($24.00) per sheet, paper included. Wheeler and Oswald estimated the cost for the index to be the same as for the text of the Journals, Oswald further noting that there would be no charge for forming and arranging the index. Isaac Collins considered the forming of the index as quite separate from the printing, saying, 'The INDEX to be printed in smaller Type . . . for Twenty Dollars by the Sheet; the forming of which to be a separate Charge, the Expense whereof it is impossible at present to ascertain with precision.'

The only other mention of expense in the proposals was concerned with the cost of binding the completed volumes, and only six printers referred to the matter at all. Loudon said he could bind the Journals 'in Folio Volumes, in blue boards [for] about half a Dollar each,' and Kollock quoted the same figure for binding volumes of eight hundred pages. Gist would bind them for 5/ (66ç) in volumes of 600-700 pages, or for 6/3 (84ç) for 1000 pages. Childs' bid of 6/ (80ç in his currency) did not refer to the number of pages;

and Wheeler wrote that the cost of binding would have to be regulated by the size of the volumes. Adams, also, said that no estimate could yet be made, but added, '. . . as I carry on Bookbinding as well as Printing, [I] hereby promise to bind them cheaper than any other Binder will do them.'

Unfortunately no accurate estimate can be made of the final and total cost of the new edition of the Journals, for only one printer, Charles Gist, was willing to venture a prediction of how many pages would be in the completed work. In his proposal he guessed, as a basis for establishing his cost per sheet, that the whole work including the index was 'supposed to amount in the type as per Specimen Y No. 1 to about 3000 pages or 750 sheets folio . . ..' His total quotation for printing and paper at the rate of $15 per sheet would therefore have been in the neighborhood of $11,250, but his bid of $12.50 per sheet for the index would have lessened that figure somewhat. At 80ç per volume for binding, $800 would have been added to the cost of printing and paper, resulting in a final estimate of close to $12,000 for the edition. But when one considers that the Journal entries for 1785 in Fitzpatrick's 1933 edition are in the twenty-ninth volume, each volume in the edition containing between three and four hundred pages, it is reasonable to believe that Gist may have under-estimated the total number of pages that would have been necessary to print the whole from the beginning to the first Monday in November, 1785.

II.

In addition to estimating costs of printing, paper, indexing, and binding, the nine printers mentioned other items of interest in connection with early American printing practice. Only two of them risked an opinion as to how long the entire job would take, Loudon hoping 'to complete the whole in about a year,' and Gist figuring two years at the outside. But several of them were able to estimate the amount of work they could do in one day or one week. Collins and Oswald assured composing and printing of one sheet every day; and Adams, who must have had the smallest shop of them all, thought he could do 'four or five Sheets a Week . . . on a Fools-Cap Size Paper, in the Letter called Pica and Small Pica.' Gist 'positively engage[d] to deliver one Sheet per day, correctly printed, but should greater despatch be wanted, he will as soon as a sufficient number of expert and steady hands can be procured set another press to work.'

Similarly Loudon intended to use two presses for the work, a fact which would probably indicate that he expected to print at least two sheets each day. Dunlap also assured two sheets per day, and Kollock said that 'Twelve sheets will be struck off weekly.' Bennett Wheeler in Providence must have planned to print on three presses at once, for he noted that his establishment

would print '12 Pages per day—and more if necessary, as I could hire more hands.'

Most of the printers must have thought that Thomson's plan to do the proof-reading himself was a good one and would save them work and responsibility, for only two mentioned doing the proofing in their own shops. In his proposals, set in type as part of his specimen offering, Collins assured the Congress that 'the proof-sheets [would be] conveyed to and from the Secretary by the post-riders,' but in a handwritten letter he noted that he could have the proofs read in Trenton 'by Mr. Houston who has been used to and is excellent at the Business.' Adams, hoping to advance one more reason why he should do the work at Wilmington, said that he could have 'the Assistance of a Gentleman, (now principal Master of our Academy) who has been Corrector in one of the principal Offices in London in revising the Proof-Sheets. . . .' He further pointed out that he would thus 'be relieving [the Secretary] of a great deal of Labour, as it appears you intend to revise the proof sheets yourself—.'

A problem in which the printers evinced considerably more interest, however, concerned paper and its availability. Loudon hoped that there would 'be no hindrance on account of Paper,' and Dunlap said he would only be able to commence work after the paper had been made. Kollock would put the work 'to press as soon as a contract for paper can be accomplished, which shall not exceed four weeks,' but Gist felt that he would require at least six months to procure paper and other materials for the job. Adams cautioned that the paper should 'be contracted for without Delay, as the large Quantity that will be wanted will require a considerable Space of Time to finish it.' Only Wheeler, state printer to Rhode Island, seemed to be confronted with no delay; he stated that he would use the same paper as that upon which he had that summer printed the Journals of Assembly for his own state.

Apparently the paper manufacturers were particular about prompt payment because Dunlap asked for an advance for 200 reams of paper, and Collins requested money for 233 reams at $3 per ream. Adams wrote, in addition, 'If I should be favoured with the Work, I expect to have Cash advanced to pay for Paper, as our Paper Maker does not incline to spare a single Ream without it.'

III

Of the specimens of type, paper, and workmanship submitted with the proposals, those of Charles Gist were the most comprehensive. He offered as a sample of his printing abilities a sheet of the Journals of Congress set in Pica, and a sheet of Congressional accounts set in a smaller type that he

planned to use for the index. A third sheet was a sample of paper, but he said in his letter that the paper he would use for the job would be 'rather of a better colour.' Finally he submitted a large sheet containing short paragraphs set in forty-three different type styles, half of them Roman and the other half Italic, ranging in size from 'Two Lines English' to 'Pearl Italic.' At the top of the sheet was the information that the types were all 'cast in the Letter Foundry of Dr. Alex. Wilson and Sons. Glasgow. 1783.' Bennett Wheeler offered a copy of his newspaper, the Providence, R. I., United States Chronicle: Political, Commercial, and Historical, for Thursday, Sept. 29, 1785, containing four pages, on the last of which there was a reprint of Thomson's advertisement to the printers. In addition he submitted half a dozen pages of the 'Journals of Assembly (which we printed this summer).' Francis Childs included a sample of a Latin paragraph in Pica with a note saying that it was 'Composed in Latin to shew a greater diversity of types.'

Childs in his proposals made certain that his connection with Benjamin Franklin should come to the attention of Congress, for he wrote, 'The subscriber from a Letter received from Doctor Franklin, since his arrival, expects, in the next French packet, a Variety of Types—the Matrixes of which were designed by the Doctor and cast under his direction.' To bolster his credentials he later sent to Thomson that letter itself and another one from Franklin expressing an interest in assisting Childs to establish himself in the printing business in New York. Shepard Kollock also relied on Franklin's eminence as a help in procuring the favor of Congress. For his specimens he submitted both his own proposals and an address to Congress set in Pica, and pointed out that they had been 'printed with a new and elegant Type . . . cast under the immediate supervision of that great Typographer, Doctor Franklin.' At the end of his proposals he noted, 'The superior talents of Doctor Franklin, in the typographical art, in which he is so familiar, flatter the publisher with producing a work which will attract the admiration of Congress; and from which he will derive a proportionate share of the credit.'

Oswald and Dunlap submitted sample pages of the Journals of Congress, which they had printed in earlier years while they were serving as public printers. Adams offered samples of Latin paragraphs in three kinds of Roman and Italic sizes, Pica, Small Pica, and Long Primer, and spoke admiringly of his type supply as follows: 'As I have lately imported from London a general Assortment of Types, Specimens of such as I suppose you will have the Work printed on you have here enclosed, think there is not a Printer on the Continent better provided for that Work—If a larger Size Letter than you have here inclos'd might be pitch'd on, I have such.' Samuel Loudon offered no specimens, but suggested 'Lawsize' paper and English type, or 'Demy' paper

set in English or Pica. He added that 'The whole (should it be my lot to print them) shall be done with new Types, experienced Compositors and Pressmen.'

The proposals of the nine printers afford thus a unique cross section of information about a number of aspects of the printing trade in the young American republic. From them can be made comparisons of costs of printing and paper, prices of indexing and binding, and estimates of the length of time necessary for the completion of the job. With the comments about type, paper, and proofing, and the samples of workmanship, the proposals constitute a collection of contemporary information of particular interest in any examination of early American publishing.

A final matter worth noting is that actually nothing ever came of Thomson's advertisement and the printer's replies to it. Evidently the total cost of the new edition would have been too great an expense for the Continental Congress to bear; for after the entry in the Resolve book authorizing Thomson to request bids, there is the following notation in his handwriting: 'On this the Secretary took order to publish for proposals, the proposals he laid before Congress, who referred them to a come.e. and the come.e. made report on which no decision is come to.'[5] Instead of the whole new edition originally planned for, Congress decided to satisfy itself with an index to the Journals that had previously been printed by various hands from year to year. On August 15, 1786, the following resolution was passed: 'That the Secy. of cong. take order without Delay to employ some person or persons to make an Index of the printed Journals of Congress. . . .'[6] There the matter rested.