style,
and all his productions were more forcible than elegant. But their very
bareness and sinewy proportions opened their way to the hearts of the
people whom he addressed. His prejudices were their prejudices, and in
the most earnest expression of his own strongest feeling and passion he
found the echo from the multitude of the democracy of his adopted state.

His childhood and early youth thus formed, his next step was in the
learning his trade, or acquiring his profession: for if any occupation
in life combines more elements of professional knowledge than another,
it is that of a printer-editor.

Though not an indented apprentice, he served his _seven years' time_
with faithfulness, and acquired those habits of patient, persevering
industry which characterized his whole subsequent career. The
printing-office has been the college and university to many of the most
distinguished of our citizens: and that which he founded at Concord has
been the _Alma Mater_ of a series of graduates, of whom old Dartmouth
might justly be proud, could she enroll them among her Alumni. Although
the paper published by Mr. Cushing, with whom young Hill learned his
profession, was strongly federal, he retained the strong democratic
prejudices of his father's house, which he afterwards so zealously
advocated in more responsible positions.

He went to Concord, N. H, on the 5th April 1809, the day before he
attained his majority. He bought an establishment of six months'
standing, from which had been issued the _American Patriot_, a
democratic paper, but not conducted with any great efficiency, and
therefore not considered as yet "a useful auxiliary in the cause of
republicanism." On the 18th of April, 1809, was issued the first number
of the _New Hampshire Patriot_, a paper destined to exert an immense
influence in that state from that time to the present. The press on
which it was printed was the identical old _Ramage_ press on which had
been struck off the first numbers of the old _Connecticut Courant_,
forty-five years before, that is, in 1764. The first number of the paper
is before us. It bears for its motto the following sentiment of Madison,
"Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights of others, it shall
be our true glory to cultivate peace by observing justice." Among the
selections is a portion of the famous speech of William B. Giles, in the
Senate, February 13th, 1809, in support of the resolution for a repeal
of the Em