Note 453a — JOURNAL TO STELLA (continued 10)

By the Stamp Act passed on June 10, 1712—which was repealed in 1859—a duty of one halfpenny was levied on all pamphlets and newspapers contained in half a sheet or less, and a duty of one penny on those of more than half but not exceeding a whole sheet. Swift opposed the idea in January 1711 (see p. 138), and Defoe argued against the Bill in the Review for April 26, 1712, and following numbers. Addison, in the Spectator, No. 445, spoke of the mortality among authors resulting from the Stamp Act as “the fall of the leaf.”