Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/335

322 history. The floodgates of calumny were opened. By a stroke of evil fortune Jefferson further roused against himself the hatred of a man whose vileness made him more formidable than the respectablility of New England could ever be. James Thompson Callender, a Scotch adventurer compared with whom the Cobbetts, Duanes, Cheethams, and Woods who infested the press were men of moral and pure life, had been an ally of Jefferson during the stormy days of 1798, and had published at Richmond a volume called "The Prospect before us," which was sufficiently libellous to draw upon him a State prosecution, and a fine and some months' imprisonment at the rough hands of Judge Chase. A few years later the Republicans would have applauded the sentence, and regretted only its lightness. In 1800 they were bound to make common cause with the victim. When Jefferson became President, he pardoned Callender, and by a stretch of authority returned to him the amount of his fine. Naturally Callender expected reward. He hastened to Washington, and was referred to Madison. He said that he was in love, and hinted that to win the object of his affection nothing less than the post-office at Richmond was necessary for his social standing. Meeting with a positive refusal, he returned to Richmond in extreme anger, and became editor of a newspaper called "The Recorder," in which he began to wage against Jefferson a war of slander that Cobbett and Cheetham