[1] Under the powers of the act Sir Roger L'Estrange was appointed licenser, and the effect of the supervision was that practically the newspaper press was reduced to the London Gazette.

On the expiration of the Licensing Act in 1692 it was continued till the end of the existing session of Parliament (4 Will.

The stationers petitioned Parliament for new censorship legislation, and when that failed they argued that authors had a natural and inherent right of ownership in what they wrote (knowing there was little an author could do with such rights other than sign them over to a publisher).

[4] The power of a secretary of state to issue a warrant, whether general or special, for the purpose of searching for and seizing the author of a libel or the libellous papers themselves – a power exercised by the Star Chamber and confirmed by the Licensing Act – was still asserted, and was not finally declared illegal until the case of Entick v. Carrington in 1765 (St. Tr.

From that time the English press may be said to date its complete freedom, which rests rather upon an oral constitutional rather than a statutory foundation.

No legislative provision confirms the freedom of the press, as is the case in many countries.