AustLit

'On Saturday, the 23rd September, 1820, the free residents of Hobart Town, on opening the moist folio of the Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter found a startling proclamation. The Hobart Town Gazette, let us note, was the paper authorised by the Government and assisted by those agreeable evidences of patronage, Government advertisements. It was published 'by authority,' and printed by Mr Andrew Bent - the father of the Tasmanian press, who was at that time the leading printer in Hobart Town. Mr Bent, however, fell out with Governor Arthur, and venturing to attack the Government, was summarily deprived of his office, and eventually ruined.' (52)