of absolute freedom of discussion, he should exercise it with no other
limitations than those of his own judgment. A poor man, he admitted that
he established the paper in the expectation of deriving from it a
livelihood, but that even for that object he could not trim its sails to
suit the varying breeze of popular prejudice. "If," said he, "a paper
which makes the Right, and not the Expedient, its cardinal object, will
not yield its conductor a support, there are honest vocations that will,
and better the humblest of them than to be seated at the head of an
influential press, if its influence is not exerted to promote the cause
of truth." He was true to his promise. The free soul of a free, strong
man spoke out in his paper. How refreshing was it, after listening to
the inanities, the dull, witless vulgarity, the wearisome commonplace of
journalists, who had no higher aim than to echo, with parrot-like
exactness, current prejudices and falsehoods, to turn to the great and
generous thoughts, the chaste and vigorous diction, of the Plaindealer!
No man ever had a clearer idea of the duties and responsibilities of a
conductor of the public press than William Leggett, and few have ever
combined so many of the qualifications for their perfect discharge: a
nice sense of justice, a warm benevolence, inflexible truth, honesty
defying temptation, a mind stored with learning, and having at command
the treasures of the best thoughts of the best authors. As was said of
Fletcher of Saltoun, he was "a gentleman steady in his principles; of
nice honor, abundance of learning; bold as a lion; a sure friend; a man
who would lose his life to serve his country, and would not do a base
thing to save it."

He had his faults: his positive convictions sometimes took the shape
of a proud and obstinate dogmatism; he who could so well appeal to the
judgment and the reason of his readers too often only roused their
passions by invective and vehement declamation. Moderate men were
startled and pained by the fierce energy of his language; and he not
unfrequently made implacable enemies of opponents whom he might have
conciliated and won over by mild expostulation and patient explanation.
It must be urged in extenuation, that, as the champion of unpopular
truths, he was assailed unfairly on all sides, and indecently
misrepresented and calumniated to a degree, as his friend Sedgwick justly
remarks, unprecedented even in the annals of the Americ