“This Day Published…Mr. Bates and his Horses”?

Two hundred fifty years ago today, on 18 Oct 1773, the Boston Post-Boy published this advertisement:

THIS DAY PUBLISHED,
And to be SOLD at the New Printing-Office
in Hanover-street, Boston,
A Pamphlet, entitled,
Mr. Bates and his Horses,
Weighed in the Balance.

In which is shewn, with great Brevity, that his Exhibitions in Boston, are impoverishing, disgraceful to human Nature, and downright Breaches of the Sixth Commandment.

OH BE A MAN! Young.

This was very similar to the advertisements that had appeared back on 27 September, as previously quoted. The big difference is that the first ad had started, “In a few Days will be published…”

The 17 October was even more similar to an ad in the Post-Boy on 4 October, and again on 11 October. In fact, those three notices were all identical. And they all said that “Mr. Bates and his Horses” was published that day. The text never shifted over to say “Now available” or any other phrasing to indicate the pamphlet was already off the press.

Combined with how no printed copy of “Bates and His Horses Weighed in the Balance” has survived, nor any mention of it in writings of the time, that repeated advertisement raises the question of whether that screed was actually ever printed.

Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks, printers of the Boston Post-Boy since April, could have sold ad space for a certain number of weeks and kept the type in place for each new issue of the paper until that time ran out. If they didn’t hear from their client about updating the wording, they had no strong motive to quibble with it.

On the other hand, Joseph Greenleaf, proprietor of the printing office on Hanover Street, would probably have wanted some payment before investing time and paper in the pamphlet. With Jacob Bates heading out of town in early October, public interest in his moral standing probably dried up.

But we can’t be sure. Perhaps some author really had a lot to say about Bates’s equestrian exhibition and did pay to have it printed, only for no one else to care enough to preserve the result. People could always find a use for scraps of rag linen paper.