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NOTE ON SOURCES
Rhode Island, New York City, and Philadelphia. Soon after establishing
the journal, Goddard left for Philadelphia where he established a new
postal service to get around the Crown's postal service. Before depart-
ing for Philadelphia, Goddard left his sister, Mary Katherine Goddard,
in charge of the Journal. William Goddard helped to establish the U.S.
Post Office but was given only a low-level position in it. He failed to
get a commission in the Continental Army. Consequently, he returned
to Baltimore but his sister's name remained on the masthead until
January 1784. During that time her brother exerted much influence,
but remained in the background. William Goddard was involved in
several disputes with the government and the public over material that
the Journal printed. In these disputes, he successfully defended the lib-
erty of the press against the influence and interference of government
and the pressure of public opinion. His defense of his publications,
caused some to charge that he was loyal to the Crown. Throughout his
life, Goddard exhibited a violent temper. He had numerous quarrels
with his partners and the public, but according to his contemporary
Isaiah Thomas, a prominent and prolific newspaper owner and the
historian of early American newspapers, "Few could conduct a news-
paper better than Goddard." Such conduct probably led "T" to assert
in the Maryland Journal of 11January 1788 that the journal was a "useful
and agreeable Paper [that] seems to circulate in as a great extent as
any Paper on this Continent" (RCS:Md., 174).
From September to December 1787, the Maryland Journal reprinted
several major Antifederalist items from out-of-state newspapers but no
significant original Antifederalist pieces. On the Federalist side, God-
dard printed several original pieces and reprinted a few out-of-state
items. In the first four months of 1788, the Maryland Journal continued
to publish original and reprinted Federalist items. This prompted a
Baltimore gentleman to declare that: "Mr. Goddard, hitherto against
the new constitution, is now by the force of the arguments published
in his own paper, become highly and truly federal" (Pennsylvania Mer-
cury, 26 February [RCS:Md., 324-25]). This observation, however, over-
stated the balance of Federalist and Antifederalist items in Goddard's
paper. He printed six items by Luther Martin and reprinted several
major Antifederalist pieces from New York and Pennsylvania newspa-
pers.
The Maryland Journal printed pieces addressed to the voters in Anne
Arundel, Baltimore, Montgomery, and Talbot counties and Baltimore
Town in the run-up to the election of state Convention delegates in
April 1788, the amendments presented by William Paca in the Conven-
tion, the Address of the Antifederalist minority in the Convention, an
account of the Federal Procession in Baltimore celebrating Maryland's
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