ern phrase is, he "gave himself away." There is a
feeling, common even in those early and innocent days when such things
were rare, that the editor, whose daily bread, whether it be cake or
crust, comes from the bounty of the man in office or other place of
power,--that an editor so fed, and perhaps fattened, is only a servant
bought at a price. Madison said that to help a needy man whom he held in
high esteem was his "primary and governing motive." But he adds: "That,
as a consequential one, I entertained hopes that a free paper ... would
be an antidote to the doctrines and discourses circulated in favor of
monarchy and aristocracy; would be an acceptable vehicle of public
information in many places not sufficiently supplied with it,--this also
is a certain truth." What was this but an acknowledgment of the
essential truth of the charge brought against Jefferson and himself? Not
that he might not devoutly hope for an antidote to the poisonous
doctrines of monarchy and aristocracy, though in very truth the
existence of any such poison was only one of the maggots which, bred in
the muck of party strife, had found a lodgment in his brain; not that it
was not a commendable public spirit to wish for a good newspaper to
circulate where it was most needed; not that it was not a most excellent
thing in him to hold out a helping hand to the friend who had been less
fortunate than himself,--but that, in helping his friend to a clerkship
in a department of the government, his motive was in part that the
possession of a public office would enable the man to establish a party
organ. That was precisely the point of the charge which he seems to have
failed to apprehend,--that public patronage was used at his suggestion
to further party ends.

Freneau had intended to start a newspaper somewhere in New Jersey.
Whether or not that known intention suggested that the project could be
better carried out in Philadelphia, and a clerkship in the State
Department would be an aid to it, the change of plan was adopted and the
clerkship bestowed upon him. The paper--the first number of which
appeared five days after his appointment--was, as it was known that it
would be, an earnest defender of Jefferson and his friends, and a
formidable opponent of Hamilton and his party. The logical conclusion
was that the man, being put in place for a purpose, was diligent in
using the opportunities the place afforded him to fulfill the hopes of
those to whom h