Each wished to set up a press in Boston itself, but the General Court,
probably for police reasons, had ordered that there should be no
printing but at Cambridge, and that what was printed there should be
approved by any two of four gentlemen appointed by the Court. It thus
appeared that each printer possessed a certain superiority over his
rival. In the matter of types Johnson was favored, as he had new
types and was a trained printer; but these advantages were partially
[4]neutralized by indolence and by Green's better standing before the
magistrates.{1}
In England the excesses of the printing-press during the civil war
and commonwealth led to a somewhat strict though erratically applied
censorship under the restoration. A publication must be licensed,
and the Company of Stationers still sought, for reasons of profit, to
control printers by regulating their production. The licensing agent in
chief was a character of picturesque uncertainty and spasmodic action,
Roger L'Estrange, half fanatic, half politician, half hack writer,
in fact half in many respects and whole only in the resulting
contradictions of purpose and performance. On one point he was strong--a
desire to suppress unlicensed printing. So when in 1668 warrant was
given to him to make search for unauthorized printing, he entered into
the hunt with the zeal of a Loyola and the wishes of a Torquemada,
harrying and rushing his prey and breathing threats of extreme rigor
of fine, prison, pillory, and stake against the unfortunates who had
neglected, in most cases because of the cost, to obtain the stamp of the
licenser.{2}
New England was at this time England in little, with troubles of its
own; but, having imitated the mother country in introducing supervision
of the press, it also started in to investigate the printers of the
colony, two in number, seeking to win a smile of approval from the
foolish man on the throne. With due solemnity the inquisition was
[5]made. Green could show that all then passing through his press had
been properly licensed.
1 See the chapters on Green and Johnson in Littlefield,
The Early Massachusetts Press, 197, 209.
2 L'Estrange was called the "Devil's blood hound." Col. S.
P., Dom. 1663-1664, 616.
Johnson, less fortunate, was caught with one unlicensed piece--"The Isle
of Pines." A fine of five pounds was imposed upon him, as effectual in
suppressing him as though it had been one of five thousand pounds. He
could now turn with relish to two books then on his press, "Meditations
on Death and Eternity" and the "Righteous Man's Evidence for Heaven;"
for Massachusetts Bay, with its then powerful rule of divinity without
religion, or religion without mercy, held out small hope of his meeting
such a fine within the expedition of his natural life. But he made his
submission, petitioned the General Court in properly repentant language,
acknowledged his fault, his crime, and promised amendment{1} The fine
was not collected, and the principal result of the incident was to
further the very natural union of Johnson and Green, but with Johnson as
the lesser member in importance.
No copy of Marmaduke Johnson's issue of the "Isle of Pines" has come
to light in a period of 248 years. It might well be supposed that
the authorities caught him before the tract had gone to press, and so
snuffed it out completely. Our sapient bibliographers have dismissed the
matter in rounded phrase: "'The Isle of Pines' was a small pamphlet
of the Baron Munchausen order, which in its day passed through several
editions in England and on the Continent,"{2} a description which would
fit a hundred titles of the period. In July, 1917, Sotheby announced the
sale of a portion of the Americana collected by [6]"Bishop White Kennett
(1660-1728) and given by him to the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts."