onfidence, but no less shrewdness and skill. A
new Richmond had arrived on the field. Since his visitation through
the State two years before, in behalf of Solomon Southwick's candidacy
for governor, Thurlow Weed had been growing rapidly in political
experience. He left Manlius without a penny in the autumn of 1822 to
find work on the Rochester _Telegraph_, a Clintonian paper of small
pretensions and smaller circulation. Under its new manager, and with
the name of John Quincy Adams for President at the head of the
editorial page, it soon became so popular and belligerent that the
business men of Rochester sent Weed to Albany as their agent to secure
from the Legislature a charter for a bank. Upon his arrival at the
capital, the friends of the New England candidate welcomed him to the
great political arena in which he was to fight so long, so
brilliantly, and with such success.

It was at this period in his history, that Thurlow Weed's connection
with public life began, developing into that wonderful career which
made him one of the most influential writers and strongest
personalities of his day. He was not an orator; he was not even a
public talker. One attempt to speak met with failure so embarrassing
that he never tried a second time; but he was a companionable being.
He loved the company of men. He had suffered so much, and yet retained
so much of the serenity of a child, that he was ever ready to share
his purse and his mantle of pity with the unfortunate, brightening
their lives with a tender sympathy that endeared him to all. It was so
natural for him to guide wisely and noiselessly that he seemed
unconscious of his great gifts. Men in high places, often opulent and
happy in their ease, deferred to him with the confidence of pupils to
a beloved teacher. But he possessed more than philosophic wisdom. He
was sleepless and tireless. It was his custom to attend political
gatherings in all parts of the State, and to make the acquaintance of
men in that "inner circle," who controlled the affairs of party and
the destiny of aspiring statesmen. In 1822 he had toured the State in
the interest of Solomon Southwick. From April to December, in 1824, he
attended two extra sessions of the Legislature and a meeting of the
Electoral College, besides travelling twice throughout the State in
behalf of the candidacy of John Quincy Adams. Traversing New York,
over rough roads, before the days of canals and railroads, in the
heavy, l