PARTIES. 113 



but bad appointments. Good men, said he, 

 (looking big) are not noticed — federalists are 

 appointed — republicans ought to have all the 

 offices. I solicited him to explain the dilTerence 

 between a republican and a federalist. Wh}^, said 

 he, a republican is a republican, and a federalist 

 is a federalist. At this stage of the conversation, 

 the orator was called out, and I understood that 

 he had been, until lately, an ultra federalist — that 

 at a celebration of Perry's victory on Lake Erie, 

 during the late w^ar, he had fired pop guns in 

 ridicule of the event, and that he had abjured in a 

 company of two score or so of high-minded men^ 

 his political name and creed, in order to attain 

 office. The great clamour made in the commu- 

 nity, appears to originate from such obsure and 

 disreputable sources. Judging from the wTitings 

 and conversation of this opposition, 1 should pro- 

 nounce a great dearth of talent among them : and 

 perhaps, if I may speak paradoxically, they owe 

 some of their strength to their weakness. Their 

 antagonists, in forming a just opinion of their 

 want of intellectual power, appear to have under- 

 rated their capabilities for mischief, and not to 

 have guarded sufficiently against their attacks, 

 lord Clarendon hasjustly remarked, thai '- few men 

 have done more harm than those who have been 

 thought to be able to do leasts and there cannot be 



