Watson Webb. That came in the spring of
1851 when he refused to use his political influence as speaker against
Hamilton Fish for United States senator and in favour of the owner of
the _Courier and Enquirer_. His anti-slavery convictions and strong
prejudices against the compromise measures of 1850 also rapidly
widened the gulf between him and his superior; and when the break
finally came he stepped from the speaker's chair into the editorial
management of the New York _Times_, his own paper, pure in tone and
reasonable in price, which was destined to weaken the _Courier_ as a
political organ, to rival the _Tribune_ as a family and party journal,
and to challenge the _Herald_ as a collector of news.

The stormy sessions of the Legislature of 1851 needed such a speaker
as Raymond. At the outset, the scenes and tactics witnessed at
Seward's election to the Senate in 1849 were repeated in the selection
of a successor to Daniel S. Dickinson, whose term expired on the 4th
of March. Webb's candidacy was prosecuted with characteristic zeal.
For a quarter of a century he had been a picturesque, aggressive
journalist, with a record adorned with libel suits and duels--the
result of pungent paragraphs and bitter personalities--making him an
object of terror to the timid and a pistol target for the fearless. On
one occasion, through the clemency of Governor Seward, he escaped a
two years' term in state's prison for fighting the brilliant "Tom"
Marshall of Kentucky, who wounded him in the leg, and it is not
impossible that Jonathan Cilley might have wounded him in the other
had not the distinguished Maine congressman refused his challenge
because he was "not a gentleman." This reply led to the foolish and
fatal fray between Cilley and William J. Graves, who took up Webb's
quarrel.

Webb was known as the Apollo of the press, his huge form, erect and
massive, towering above the heads of other men, while his great
physical strength made him noted for feats of endurance and activity.
As a young man he held a minor commission in the army, but in 1827, at
the age of twenty-five, he resigned to become the editor of the
_Courier_, which, in 1829, he combined with the _Enquirer_. For twenty
years, under his management, this paper, first as a supporter of
Jackson and later as an advocate of Whig policies, ranked among the
influential journals of New York. After Raymond withdrew, however, it
became the organ of the Silver-Grays, and began t