SOURCE: Smith, Jeffery A. “World Revolution and American Reform.” In Franklin and Bache: Envisioning the Enlightened Republic, pp. 111-33. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

In the excerpt that follows, Smith focuses on Bache's newspaper and publishing activities, describing the evolution of his goals as a publisher, the content of his publications, and his political and social beliefs.

In the first few months of publication, Benjamin Franklin Bache attempted to follow his announced plans for making the General Advertiser an educational newspaper. The second issue, for instance, had articles on calculating erosion and checking the quality of gunpowder. Having promised in the first issue “to gratify the Public” with anecdotes about his grandfather, he also inserted an account from an English newspaper of some of Franklin's accomplishments. Stories about Franklin and instructive items continued to find a place, but Bache was not satisfied with the merely informative. With fundamental...