But however inferior were the journals of that day to those of our own, it must be acknowledged that the former enjoyed one great advantage in the custom which prevailed for men of' the highest dis tinction in public life to use them as vehicles for disseminating Opinions among the people. Many in stances of this occur at once to memory, notably the numerous papers constituting the Federalist, which appeared at first as newspaper letters under the signature of Publius. While John Adams was vice-president of the United States he engaged in enterprises of this kind, contributing a series of ar ticles concerning French politics, known as the Dis courses on Davila. Indeed, so universal was the prac tice that Mr. Hildreth says that, of all the men of the Revolution capable of producing a newspaper essay, Jefferson was, perhaps, the only one who never touched pen to paper for the political enlightenment of the contemporaneous public. His preference was for correspondence. He practised political letter writing as an art, making it so efficient and manifest ing in it so much skill as would have called forth the Sincere admiration of Machiavelli. If one could give him the benefit of honorable motives, it would be necessary to praise his behavior in this respect; for anonymous political writing in the newspapers by prominent or responsible members of the government is a custom much to be deprecated. All that can be said is that the rules of that era permitted it; and when vice-president Adams and Mr. Secretary Hamilton furnished anonymous columns to editor Fenno, they did only what they had ample precedent for doing, and what the faulty taste of the times permitted.
