A fine example of the first in-house advertising newspaper and one of the earliest commercial papers, with prices of commodities, stocks, bonds, annuities, and the course of exchange. The first three pages comprise a continuing ‘History of the World’ (here from the 153rd to the 213th year from the building of Rome), followed by two pages of foreign intelligence from European papers, and domestic news of shipping and of the return of an envoy bringing the signed Treaty of Utrecht. The sixth page is devoted to the financial information and advertisement (two for quack medicines, one for John Brightland’s Grammar).

The Sun Fire Office was founded in 1710 and publication of The British-Mercury began in the same year. At first it appeared as a half-sheet three times a week, but in August 1712 it changed to its present format, six pages once a week, to avoid the new stamp duty. It was distributed by hand by carriers who also acted as collectors for the Sun Fire premiums; £500 insurance for houses and goods cost two shillings and sixpence a quarter, to include The British-Mercury. The editor Charles Gildon used the paper to feud with Swift and Pope in 1712. His successor later that year was John Stevens, the principal translator of Spanish and Portuguese in his time and a fervent Jacobite who had served at the Boyne. He spent his meagre earnings from the Mercury in pursuit of a ‘consuming interest in monastic history’ and amassed a formidable collection of catholic documents (ODNB).

Crane & Kay 73.