ed all
upon the overthrow of the Adams administration. Yet, the election of
his party's candidate for governor would in all probability overthrow
the Clinton-Van Buren coalition, giving the vote of the State to the
President, and possibly defeat his own re-election. It was a singular
political mix-up.

Van Buren had hoped to exclude from the campaign all national issues,
as he succeeded in doing the year before. But the friends of Clay and
Adams could not be hoodwinked. The canvass also developed combinations
that began telling hard upon Van Buren's party loyalty. Mordecai M.
Noah, an ardent supporter of Van Buren, and editor of the New York
_Enquirer_, came out openly for Clinton. For years, Noah had been
Clinton's most bitter opponent. He opposed the canal, he ridiculed its
champion, and he lampooned its supporters; yet he now swallowed the
prejudices of a lifetime and indorsed the man he had formerly
despised. Van Buren, it may safely be said, was at heart quite as
devoted a supporter of the Governor, since the latter's re-election
would be of the greatest advantage to his own personal interests; but
whatever his defects of character, and however lacking he may have
been in an exalted sense of principle, Van Buren appeared to be
sincere in his devotion to Rochester. This was emphasised by the
support of the Albany _Argus_ and other leading Regency papers.

Nevertheless, the election returns furnished ample grounds for
suspicion. Steuben County, then a Regency stronghold, gave Clinton
over one thousand majority. Other counties of that section did
proportionately as well. It was explained that this territory would
naturally support Clinton who had insisted in his message that the
central and northern counties, having benefited by the Erie and
Champlain canals, ought to give Steuben and the southern tier a public
highway. But William B. Rochester went to his watery grave[249]
thirteen years afterward with the belief that Van Buren and his
confidential friends did not act in good faith.

[Footnote 249: Rochester was lost off the coast of North Carolina, on
June 15, 1838, by the explosion of a boiler on the steamer _Pulaski_,
bound from Charleston to Baltimore. Of 150 passengers only 50
survived.]

With the help of the state road counties, however, Clinton had a
narrow escape; the returns gave him only 3650 majority.[250] This
margin appeared the more wonderful when contrasted with the vote of
Nathaniel Pitcher, can