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John Howe was a printer, and a cultured Loyalist. He brought to Nova Scotia two ideals. These were, first, the ideal of the free and democratic expression of the spirit in word and deed; and, secondly, the ideal of the expression of thought in strictly literary form. When, therefore, the Boston News-Letter was amalgamated with the Halifax Gazette, Loyalist culture and journalistic ideals and practice infected and enhanced Nova Scotian (that is, Canadian) journalism. The amalgamation changed the scope and quality of Canadian journalism. For in 1828 Joseph Howe became sole owner and editor of The Novascotian, and proceeded systematically, and with better effect, to put into practice the social, journalistic, and literary ideals of his father.

When Joseph Howe assumed absolute control of The Novascotian, in the same year (1828) he also brought together the band of Nova Scotia writers known as ‘The Club.’ In the twenty years from 1828, when Howe became active in creative journalism, to 1847, when the struggle for Responsible Government in Nova Scotia ended and Howe retired from The Novascotian, Howe raised journalism to the dignity of literature. He achieved this in two ways: first, by publishing in The Novascotian his own and Haliburton’s original ‘Club’ prose sketches, Haliburton’s first series of The Clockmaker, and the prose and verse of other contemporary Nova Scotia writers; and, secondly, by establishing, in his own narrative and descriptive sketches, essays, legislative reviews, reported legislative speeches, pamphlets, and public letters, a new standard of literary prose. Those twenty years—1828 to 1848—may be called the Epoch of the Independent Prose Literature of Canada.