He now proposed to open a “Permanent Commercial School,” at 148 Fulton Street, and advertised to teach the usual branches “in the inductive method.”  His advertisement set forth that his pupils would be taught “reading, elocution, penmanship, and arithmetic; algebra; astronomy, history, and geography; moral philosophy, commercial law, and political economy; English grammar and composition, and, also, if required, the French and Spanish languages by natives of those countries.”  This elaborate scheme was never put into execution, as Mr. Bennett did not receive a sufficient number of applications to warrant him in opening the school.  He next attempted a course of lectures on political economy at the old Dutch Church in Ann Street, but this enterprise was also a pecuniary failure.  In 1825 he purchased the “New York Courier,” a Sunday paper, but did not succeed with it.  He continued to write for the press, principally for one or two papers, selling his articles where he could, and in 1826 formed a regular connection with the “National Advocate,” a Democratic journal.  To his duties in this position he applied himself with an energy and industry never surpassed, and rarely equaled, in his profession.  He took an active part in politics, and wrote regularly and constantly for his paper, acquiring considerable reputation by his articles against the tariff and on banks and banking.  He now embarked in journalism as the business of his life, and with the determination to succeed.  In order to win success, he knew he must first learn to master himself.  He neither smoked, drank, nor gambled.  He indulged in no species of dissipation, but was temperate and prudent in all things.  A few years later he said of himself, “I eat and drink to live, not live to eat and drink.  Social glasses of wine are my aversion; public dinners are my abomination; all species of gormandizing my utter scorn and contempt.  When I am hungry, I eat; when thirsty, drink.  Wine or viands taken for society, or to stimulate conversation, tend only to dissipation, indolence, poverty, contempt, and death.”

In 1827 the “National Advocate” changed hands, and, under its new proprietors, supported John Quincy Adams for President.  Mr. Bennett, being a supporter of Martin Van Buren, then a United States Senator, resigned his position on the paper, and soon after, in connection with the late M.M.  Noah, established “The Enquirer,” which warmly espoused the cause of Andrew Jackson in the Presidential canvass of 1828.  About this time he became a recognized member of the Tammany Society.

In the spring of 1828 he went to Washington, where he resided for some time as the correspondent of “The Enquirer.”  In looking through the library of Congress one day, he found an edition of Horace Walpole’s letters, which he read with a keen relish.  These suggested the idea of a series of similar letters to his own paper, and he at once put his plan into execution.  His letters were