Federalist. When the government was organised, he was appointed secretary of the treasury; and so faithful and unremitting were his services in this office, that his successors enjoyed almost a sinecure, for his labours had reduced the work to an easy routine. Yet, so scanty was the payment for these important services, that Hamilton found it advisable to leave the cabinet, and resume his profession of law, in order to provide for the wants of his family. He was again called to public duties by the disputes with France, and re-entered the army as first officer under Washington. After the death of his commander (1799), he returned to the bar.

Hamilton, like his contemporary Fisher Ames, had a dread of ultra-democracy, and the expression of his fears gave rise to injurious suspicions of his motives; but it appears that no charge can be maintained against the consistency of his public life. In the federal convention, he proposed that the offices of the president and the senators should be held during good behaviour;' and argued that incalculable mischief must result from the too frequent elections of a chief-magistrate, attended, as they must be, by the transfer of an immense power of patronage. Addressing another speaker, he said: 'You and I, my friend, may not live to see the day; but most assuredly it will come, when every vital interest of the state will be merged in the all-absorbing question of "Who shall be the next president?" This safe prediction was very soon fulfilled. In the year 1800, at a crisis when, if a president had not been speedily chosen, the government must have perished, the competition of the two parties was so eager, that equal votes appeared for Jefferson and Burr, and the voting was repeated thirty-five times in the House of Representatives before the former could gain a majority of one state!

In 1804, Hamilton fell in a duel with Aaron Burr, vice-president of the United States; or, considering the circumstances of the affair, it would be more correct to say he was assassinated. Burr gave the challenge; and Hamilton, dreading the stigma of cowardice, went, without any intention of injuring his opponent, to the appointed place of meeting at Weehawken, near New York, and was slain.

The Federalist, the most prominent work of the revolutionary times, was written chiefly by Alexander Hamilton, but included papers contributed by James Madison and John Jay. This work, designed to elucidate and support the principles of the constitution of the United States, is esteemed as a political classic.' To quote The Edinburgh Review-'It exhibits an extent and precision of information, a profundity of research, and an acuteness of understanding, which would have done honour to the

most illustrious statesmen of ancient or modern times.' Hamilton was also the author of Phocion, a series of letters in favour of clemency to loyalists; and wrote, in 1793, the papers signed Pacificus.

JOHN ADAMS, second president of the United States, commenced, in 1755, a diary which contains valuable contributions to the materials of American history. He also wrote A Defence of the American Constitution, and numerous political papers and letters, which have been collected and edited by his grandson Charles Francis Adams.

THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826), third president of the United States, desired that it should be engraved on his monument that 'he was the author of the Declaration of Independence;' but the validity of his claim has been disputed. His other writings consist of the Notes on Virginia (1781), autobiography, correspondence, and various state-papers which were edited by Randolph. In his excursions into general literature, he betrayed shallowness and presumption; and his views of religion, morals, and politics were borrowed from the French revolutionists. He patronised and eulogised the democrat writer THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809), who emigrated to America in 1774, and here published the tract entitled Common Sense, which had a remarkable success, because its doctrines fell in with the popular excitement of the times.

FISHER AMES (1758-1808), a bold writer and speaker, gained a high reputation chiefly by the enthusiasm and lively style of his political papers and orations; but these were commonly deficient in sobriety and fair argument. That he was a fearless advocate, may be easily proved by his assertions of opinions by no means popular in his day. He described 'the turnpike-road of history' as 'white with the tombstones of republics,' and regarded the rabble of great cities as the standing army of ambition.' The following short extract—intellect in a democracy -is quoted from an Essay on American Literature:

'Intellectual superiority is so far from conciliating confidence, that it is the very spirit of a democracy, as in France, to proscribe the aristocracy of talents. To be the favourite of an ignorant multitude, a man must descend to their level; he must desire what they desire, and detest all they do not approve: he must yield to their prejudices, and substitute them for principles. Instead of enlightening their errors, he must adopt them; he must furnish the sophistry that will propagate and defend them.'

This is a fair specimen of the one-sided declamation in which Ames indulged. It is obvious that his assertions, mutatis mutandis, might have been as fairly applied to monarchies and aristocracies. Logic has too commonly a slender connection with political discussions.

NEWSPAPERS AND OTHER PERIODICALS.

1690-180 0.1

The first newspaper in North America was commenced at Boston in 1690; but of this only one copy has been preserved,2 and it seems probable that it was very soon discontinued. On the 24th of April, in 1704, The Boston News-letter appeared. 'In 1719, it obtained a rival at Boston, and was imitated at Philadelphia. In 1740, the number of newspapers in the English colonies on the continent had increased to eleven, of which one appeared in South Carolina, one in Virginia, three in Pennsylvania -one of them being in German-one in New York, and the remaining five in Boston. The paper at first used was of the foolscap size; and only one sheet, or even half a sheet, was issued weekly. The papers sought support rather by modestly relating the news of the day, than by engaging in conflicts; they had no political theories to enforce, no revolutions to hasten. In Boston, indeed, where the pulpit had sent Quakers and witches to the gallows, one newspaper, The New England Courant, the fourth American periodical, was established in 1721 by James Franklin, as an organ of independent opinion. Its temporary success was advanced by Benjamin, his brother and apprentice, a boy of fifteen, who wrote pieces for its humble columns; worked in composing the types, as well as in printing off the sheets; and carried about the papers to the customers. The little sheet satirised hypocrisy, and spoke of religious knaves as of all knaves the worst. This was described as tending "to abuse the ministers of religion in a manner which was intolerable." "I can well remember," writes Increase Mather, then more than fourscore years of age, "when the civil government would have taken an effectual course to suppress such a cursed libel." In July 1722, a resolve passed the council, appointing a censor for the press of James Franklin; but the house refused its concurrence. The ministers persevered; and in January 1723, a committee of

1 For the details in this section, we are chiefly indebted to the writer of the article, 'Periodical Literature of the United States,' North American Review, No. 85. 2 Trübner, Bibliographical Guide to American Literature. Bancroft mentions the News-letter as the first newspaper.

inquiry was raised by the legislature. Benjamin Franklin being examined, escaped with an admonition; James, the publisher, refusing to discover the author of the offence, was kept in jail for a month; his paper was censured as reflecting injuriously on the reverend ministers of the gospel; and, by vote of the house and council, he was forbidden to print it, except it be first supervised."'1

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After Benjamin Franklin had eloped from Boston, the Courant continued to be published in his name, because an order of the General Court had forbidden the publication on the part of James. In 1734, The Weekly Post-boy was started in Boston, and was followed in 1748 by The Independent Advertiser, also published in the metropolis. Out of Boston, the first newspaper was The American Weekly Mercury, commenced in Philadelphia, 1719; followed by The New York Gazette in 1728. Besides these, we find, in 1750, The Rhode Island Gazette, begun in Newport, 1732; The Pennsylvania Gazette, started in 1728; The Maryland Gazette, dating from 1728; The Virginia Gazette, from 1736; two successive South Carolina Gazettes, 1731 and 1734; and five other papersthree in New York, and two in Pennsylvania. Of these two, one was a German paper.

In the times of political excitement, after 1750, newspapers increased rapidly in number; and in 1790, there were about seventy in the United States. "The press was introduced into the wilds of Kentucky in 1786, and into Tennessee in 1793. In 1795, a newspaper was established at Cincinnati, then an Indian trading-post, on the extreme border of western civilisation.'2

....

The earliest papers were commonly printed on a half-sheet of pot paper; but now and then, when a pressure of news required a supplement, a whole sheet was given. There was only one advertisement in the first number of The News-letter. The editor, Campbell, a Scotchman, must have acquired a very respectable position in society, for he was appointed as justice of the peace. In 1718, he announced that, after fourteen years' experience, he found it impossible to crowd 'all the public news of Europe' into a half-sheet of pot paper! His greatest trial was the competition of Franklin's Courant. That small spitefulness which now forms the sole animating principle of too many provincial papers, was almost coeval with the press in New England. First, The Courant, in its prospectus, most invidiously described The Newsletter as 6 a dull vehicle;' a form of abuse oddly like one of our modern slang phrases. The Scotch editor replied by stating, that

1 Bancroft.

2 Trübner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature.

a new paper had appeared, edited by a 'Jack-of-all-trades,' 'good at none, and giving some very, very frothy, fulsome account of himself.' This was a free translation of Franklin's motto-homo non unius negotii. With such spirit was this gentlemanly argument conducted, that Campbell was stimulated to give a whole sheet every week for two months; but when the excitement had passed over, he returned to his primitive half-sheet of pot.

The New England Journal, after an independent life of fifteen years, was united with The Boston Gazette, and so continued until 1752. During its separate existence, it took a leading part in religious disputes, and among its contributors we find a waggish minister, the Rev. Mather Byles, who reminds us that the stern old times of Puritanism have passed away. He was a man of considerable learning, and corresponded with Pope, the English poet; but his inveterate punning made him the Joe Miller of Boston. He was not only humorous, but was the cause of humour in others; and the good people of Boston seem to have been especially amused by an encounter of wit between Byles and his fellow-townsman Joseph Green. The latter, who wrote rhymes, tells us that 'on one occasion, when Byles was engaged to conduct divine service on board a vessel, finding no collection of psalmody, he wrote for the edification of the crew a metrical psalm.' Green describes how Byles lamented that even David had never written a proper psalm to sing at sea,' and to supply the supposed defect, produced from his own poetic resources a psalm of a very dreary character, as a few lines will shew. He 'Sat down, took out his book, and said :

"Let's sing a psalm of Mather Byles."

At first, when he began to read,

Their heads the assembly downward hung;

But he with boldness did proceed,

And thus he read, and thus they sung:

"With vast amazement we survey

The wonders of the deep,

Where mackerel swim, and porpoise play,

And crabs and lobsters creep."

Another paper, The Weekly Rehearsal-afterwards styled The Boston Evening Post-was edited by a humorous and satirical printer named Fleet. He sometimes inserted a joke in the place of an advertisement, if we may accept the following as a joke :

"To be sold by the printer of this paper, a negro man, about thirty years old, who can do both town and country business very well, but