among the wealthy, at that
time, home-education was often employed. The children of both sexes
were committed to the care of private tutors, usually young Scotchmen,
the graduates of Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, sent over to the
planter, upon order, along with his yearly supply of goods, by his
merchant abroad. Or else the sons were sent to select private schools,
like that of Ogilvie, set up by men of such abilities and scholarship
as were supposed capable of performing the whole work of institutions.

At any rate, our youth, without further preparation, at about the age
of eighteen, entered earnestly upon the duties of life. He fell at
once into his vocation,--impelled to it, no doubt, by the ambition for
letters and public affairs which the lessons of Ogilvie usually
produced. Party ran high. Virginia politics, flushed with recent
success, had added to the usual passions of the contest those of
victory.

Into the novelties of the day our student accordingly plunged, in
common with nearly all others of a like age and condition. He became,
in short, a politician. Though talent of every other sort abounded,
that of writing promptly and pleasingly did not. Young Seaton was
found to possess this, and therefore soon obtained leave to exercise
it as assistant-editor of one of the Richmond journals. He had already
made himself acquainted with the art of printing, in an office where
he became the companion and friend of the late Thomas Ritchie, and it
is more than probable that many of his youthful "editorials" were "set
up" by his own hands. Attaining by degrees a youthful reputation, he
received an invitation to take the sole charge of a respectable paper
in Petersburg, "The Republican," the editor and proprietor of which,
Mr. Thomas Field, was about to leave the country for some months.
Acquitting himself here with great approval, he won an invitation to a
still better position,--that of the proprietary editorship of the
"North Carolina Journal," published at Halifax, the former capital of
that State, and the only newspaper there. He accepted the offer, and
became the master of his own independent journal. Of its being so he
proceeded at once to give his patrons a somewhat decisive token. They
were chiefly Federalists; it was a region strongly Federal; and the
gazette itself had always maintained the purest Federalism: but he
forthwith changed its politics to Republican.

There can be no doubt that he who made a ch