Note 105 — Chapter V
Reading edition
L’Estrange was a censor of the press. In the Record Office, Dom. Charles II., may be found Williamson’s authority to “Roger L’Estrange, surveyor of the press, to act as one of his deputies in the licensing of books,” dated Whitehall, February 5, 1674–5.
In 1684 L’Estrange commenced a periodical entitled The Observator, which he carried on until 1687. He there upholds the Royal dispensing power, and ridicules Protestant excitements, the right to liberty of conscience, the Long Parliament, and Nonconformists of all kinds, pronouncing Dissent a political schism. He published the paper irregularly, sometimes twice, sometimes thrice a week. It is written after the manner of a dialogue between The Observator and its opponents. I have met with three or four large volumes of the publication, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. They justify the strong language I have used.