_The Gentlemen trading to the East-Indies, &c._ The publisher’s
advertisement burlesques a practice of the bookseller John Almon
(1737-1805), friend and biographer of John Wilkes, and between the
years 1761-81 publisher-in-ordinary to the Whig Opposition. Almon had
extensive connections in the American colonies and was the compiler of
_The Remembrancer_, 1775-84, a valuable collection of materials relating
to the Revolution. In his satire on the French ministry, _The Green Box
of Monsieur de Sartine_, 1779, Tickell represents a French spy in London
reporting ruefully:
News-papers, pamphlets, parliamentary debates, remembrancers,
and all the infinite variety of periodical libels, under the
conduct of our good friend Mr. Almon, leave but a scanty and
beaten field of politics for private discovery (pp. 12-13).