charge of his country's debt.

[Footnote 1: The facts which follow I received from the lips and from
the papers of this revered man, now no more.--J.P.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Duane.]

JAMES GORDON BENNETT AND THE NEW YORK HERALD

A few years ago it seemed probable that the people of the United
States would be supplied with news chiefly through the agency of
newspapers published in the city of New York. We were threatened with
a paper despotism similar to that formerly exercised in Great Britain
by the London Times; since, when one city furnishes a country with
newspapers, one newspaper is sure, at length, to gain such a
predominance over others that its proprietor, if he is equal to his
position, wields a power greater than ought to be intrusted to an
individual. There have been periods when the director of the London
Times appeared to be as truly the monarch of Great Britain as Henry
VIII. once was, or as William Pitt during the Seven Years' War. It
was, we believe, the opinion of the late Mr. Cobden, which Mr.
Kinglake confirms, that the editor of the London Times could have
prevented the Crimean War. Certainly he conducted it. Demosthenes did
not more truly direct the resources of Athens against Philip, than did
this invisible and anonymous being those of the British Empire against
Russia. The first John Walter, who was to journalism what James Watt
was to the steam-engine, had given this man daily access to the ear of
England; and to that ear he addressed, not the effusions of his own
mind, but the whole purchasable eloquence of his country. He had
relays of Demosthenes. The man controlling such a press, and fit to
control it, can bring the available and practised intellect of his
country to bear upon the passions of his countrymen; for it is a fact,
that nearly the whole literary talent of a nation is at the command of
any honorable man who has money enough, with tact enough. The editor
who expends fifty guineas a day in the purchase of three short essays
can have them written by the men who can do them best. What a power is
this, to say three things every morning to a whole nation,--to say
them with all the force which genius, knowledge, and practice united
can give,--and to say them without audible contradiction! Fortunate
for England is it that this power is no longer concentrated in a
single man, and that the mighty influence once wielded by an
individual will henceforth be exerted by a profession.

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