Into the novelties of the day our student accordingly plunged, in common with nearly all others of a like age and condition.  He became, in short, a politician.  Though talent of every other sort abounded, that of writing promptly and pleasingly did not.  Young Seaton was found to possess this, and therefore soon obtained leave to exercise it as assistant-editor of one of the Richmond journals.  He had already made himself acquainted with the art of printing, in an office where he became the companion and friend of the late Thomas Ritchie, and it is more than probable that many of his youthful “editorials” were “set up” by his own hands.  Attaining by degrees a youthful reputation, he received an invitation to take the sole charge of a respectable paper in Petersburg, “The Republican,” the editor and proprietor of which, Mr. Thomas Field, was about to leave the country for some months.  Acquitting himself here with great approval, he won an invitation to a still better position,—­that of the proprietary editorship of the “North Carolina Journal,” published at Halifax, the former capital of that State, and the only newspaper there.  He accepted the offer, and became the master of his own independent journal.  Of its being so he proceeded at once to give his patrons a somewhat decisive token.  They were chiefly Federalists; it was a region strongly Federal; and the gazette itself had always maintained the purest Federalism:  but he forthwith changed its politics to Republican.

There can be no doubt that he who made a change so manly conducted his paper with spirit.  Yet he must have done it also with that wise and winning moderation and fairness which have since distinguished him and his associate.  William Seaton could never have fallen into anything of the temper or the taste, the morals or the manners, which are now so widely the shame of the American press; he could never have written in the ill spirit of mere party, so as to wound or even offend the good men of an opposite way of thinking.  The inference is a sure one from his character, and is confirmed by what we know to have happened during his editorial career among the Federalists of Halifax.  Instead of his paper’s losing ground under the circumstances just mentioned, it really gained so largely and won so much the esteem of both sides, that, when he desired to dispose of it, in order to seek a higher theatre, he easily sold the property for double what it had cost him.

It was now that he made his way to Raleigh, the new State-capital, and became connected with the “Register.”  Nor was it long before this connection was drawn yet closer by his happy marriage with the lady whose virtues and accomplishments have so long been the modest, yet shining ornament and charm of his household and of the society of Washington.  After this union, he continued his previous relationship with the “Register,” until, as already mentioned, he came to the metropolis to join all his fortunes with those of his brother-in-law.