Hugh Gaine was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1726, and learned his trade there in the office of James Macgee. At the expiration of his apprenticeship he emigrated to New York, where he found employment with James Parker. In 1752 Gaine opened a printing-house of his own, and on August 3 of that year began the publication of The New-York Weekly Mercury, and continued the paper under that title until 1770, when he changed it to The New-York Gazette and the Weekly Mercury.