When the first Gazette appeared 225 years ago, there was not much of what we today would call news.

There was not much point in printing news since it would have been passed around by word of mouth long before it could be set in type and printed, a process that took four men three days.

Still, Fleury Mesplet had the idea of using his publication as a kind of news medium. "The establishment of a periodical paper appears to me as to many others a project of such nature as to deserve your attention," he wrote. "I dare flatter myself, I hope, gentlemen, you will encourage this my feeble Beginning, that you will in a short time see with satisfaction not only a great variety of Notices and Advertisements, but also a Collection of facts both entertaining and instructive."

Mesplet hoped to appeal to advertisers by offering business information. "I had proposed to fill the sheet with advertisements and with material which might be interesting to commerce," he wrote in the inaugural edition. "Both are wanting at present."

The paper was printed on a heavy wooden hand-powered press. It had taken seven weeks in 1776 for Mesplet to transport it up from Philadelphia by forest tracks and a series of lakes and rivers.

The British authorities arrested him as an American agent, but released him after 26 days because he owned - and had the ability to run - the only press in town.

It was on its way to becoming a newspaper as we now know it when he died in 1794.

The Gazette in 1778

Owner: Fleury Mesplet, 44.

Location: Capitale St., near the corner of St. François Xavier St. The street was one block north of the fortified wall along the waterfront, running parallel to St. Paul St.

Price: One year's subscription for 21/2 Spanish dollars, among several currencies then used in Montreal. The subscription fee would cover a servant's wages for a month.

Press run: 300

Frequency: Weekly.

Did you know? The Gazette is seven years older than the venerable Times of London.

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