Benjamin Edes, one of the most influential political writers and newspaper publishers of the period of the American Revolution, published the Boston Gazette and Country Journal for forty-three years with his partner, John Gill. The Gazette served as the organ of the Patriots. Edes fought British policy through written attacks on the Stamp Act, the tea tax, the Townshend Acts, and other oppressive measures. Called the "trumpeters of sedition," Edes and Gill were constantly under attack by British officials and Loyalists but were never silenced.

Edes was born on 14 October 1732 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, to Peter and Esther Hall Edes. After a small amount of schooling in Charlestown, Edes married Martha Starr in 1754. He and Gill took over the Boston Gazette and Country Journal on 7 April 1755.

The Gazette had been established on 21 December 1719 by William Brooker, who was then postmaster of Boston. Five successive postmasters edited the weekly before...