32 MEMOIR OP HON. W. W. SEA.TON. 



He was a descendant in the direct line of a family of no little note in tlie 

 mnals of Scotland. But hoAvever famed for wisdom in council and valor in the 

 field, the Seatons had for centuries been scarcely less distinguished for an un- 

 faltering attachment to the royal house. Hence, when the government of the 

 revolution of 1688 was finally established, Mr. Henry Seaton, with a number 

 of other Scotch gentlemen, despairing of any retrieval of the fallen cause of 

 the Stuarts, was led to cross the ocean and seek a new home and new fortunes 

 on the hospitable soil of colonial Virginia. It was in King William county, 

 Virginia, that William Winston Seaton, a lineal descendant of Henry Sea- 

 ton, first saw the light, January 11, 1785. His mother bore the name of 

 Winston, a family originally from Yorkshire, in England, but long settled 

 in Virginia, where it has always enjoyed great social consideration and in- 

 fluence. Mr. Seaton's early training was under the roof of his father, Mr. 

 Augustine Seaton, at a time when the state of society may be said to have been 

 peculiarly conducive to the formation of habits of self-reliance, independent 

 thought, and a scrupulous regard for the feelings of others. To the love of 

 study he added the love of the chase, a taste which accompanied him through 

 life, and which, exacting robust exercise and steadiness of aim, seemed to have 

 left its impress on his figure and action when he had reached the age of more 

 than fourscore years. In the days to which v/e now refer, schools and colleges 

 were not always at hand ; books were not strewn broadcast through the coun- 

 try ; the library, which existed as an heirloom of some old family, was such 

 as they had brought with them from the Old World, received only rare acces- 

 sions, and afforded none' of those helps to easy knowledge which have perhaps 

 extenuated our mental culture in the same proportion that they have extended 

 it. If any special source of the love of letters, the refined taste, and varied ac- 

 quirements which so highly .distinguished Mr. Seaton might be pointed out, 

 perhaps it would be found in the influence exerted on his opening mind by a 

 Scotch gentleman then living as a refugee in Virginia, the well known Ogilvie, 

 earl of Finlater, of whom few persons living at that day had not something to 

 tell, as well respecting his eccentricities as his diversified accomplishments. 

 But the mind on which these various influences acted was in itself well disposed 

 for vigorous and independent exertion. At the early age of seventeen young 

 Seaton was already prepared to enter on the business of life, and having adopted 

 political journalism as his future pursuit, he gave it his constant services to the 

 close ;■ Avith how high and just a reputation for editorial equity, skilful manage- 

 ment, and fulness of information, is Avell known to all who have been observers 

 of the public events of our time. 



After acting for some time as assistant editor of a Eichmond paper, he passed, 

 not Avithout the prestige of early developed talent and force of character, to the 

 sole management of the Petersburg Republican, and subsequently to that of the 

 North Carolina Journal, of Halifax. Both Virginia and " the Old North State" 

 were then peculiarly agitated by the passions and turbulence of political parti- 

 sanship ; the position of editor was not only environed with difficulties, but at- 

 tended with danger. Mr, Seaton, with a diffidence which was always charac- 



