ABSTRACT
I Na high treason trial before the King's Bench in 1794 one of the questions before the court was whether an item had been printed in France or England. The rules of evidence did not allow comparison with other
printing, French or English, but a witness, the Swiss-born London bookseller De Boffe, had no hesitation in saying the printing was French. As he went unchallenged De Boffe did not have to explain his opinion, simply agreeing with the barrister leading him that 'the paper, ... the type, and ... the general appearance' were French. 1 No doubt he could have said more about general appearance, for otherwise his evidence is inconclusive. French paper after all could be imported, and French type was used in London throughout the century, but neither guaranteed a French appearance, which lay in the way the French set out a page. Duplication of that style outside France was understandably difficult, if attempted at all. During most of the eighteenth century, French works printed in London almost invariably had an English look about them and were often of a low standard. Yet by the closing decades of the century the quality had begun to improve and the work of Thomas Spilsbury, for example, was favourably compared to Parisian printing.l In the 1790S other printers also began to achieve accuracy and a French appearance. The French Revolution encouraged this: bnigrts in England constituted an expanding and discerning market for works in French and a few were probably trained printers, 3 just as Huguenot refugees can be found in the printing trade during the early decades of the century." Little wonder that the court felt the need for an expert opinion.
