Ace History Desk – The Free Brazilian Press

Brazil’s first newspaper was published from London by an exiled Freemason on first-name terms with British royalty. Who was Hipólito da Costa and what was his news?

In the final months of 1805, with Europe occupied by the Napoleonic Wars, a Brazilian fugitive arrived in London, the final destination on a journey of escape via Gibraltar from the dungeons of the Portuguese Inquisition in Lisbon where he had been held on charges of Freemasonry.

His name was Hipólito José da Costa Pereira Furtado de Mendonça (anglicised to Hippolyto Joseph) and he was 31 years old. For the remaining 18 years of his life he lived in London, editing and publishing what is widely considered to be Brazil’s first newspaper, the Correio Braziliense, ou Armazém Literário (Brazilian Post, or Literary Warehouse).

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