On this day the British government in India passed an order to stop the mailing of Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, the first newspaper published in Asia, through the post office.
The weekly newspaper, which was first published on January 29, 1780, and was priced at Re 1, had become increasingly vocal against the government in a few months.
When Hicky was informed that India Gazette, supported by the East India Company, was about to be launched as a rival to Bengal Gazette, he accused an East India Company employee Simon Droz and Governor-General Warren Hastings’s wife Marian Hastings of demanding bribes.
The mailing of Bengal Gazette through the post office stopped after this. In retaliation, Hicky hired 20 courier men to deliver the newspaper.
Bengal Gazette was published, with breaks in between, till 1782, when the East India Company seized the newspaper’s types and printing press.