The third corner of the triangular fight was well maintained, for although Dr. Irving was amiable, some of Burr's friends were equally ready with pen or pistol. The scurrilities of these factionfights ripened into a harvest of duels. One day Matthew L. Davis, of Burr's Myrmidons, patrolled Wall Street, weapon in hand, expecting to slay Cheetham on sight. A challenge from Cheetham to Coleman led to a bloody fight between Coleman and Harbormaster Thompson in which the latter was shot to death.
None of these New York city papers wielded much influence outside of the city and its vicinity. The mentor of the Democratic Republican journals of the state was the Albany Evening Register. That paper had the advantage of location, for the state officers were residents at Albany and frequent contributors to the columns of the Register. It was the bulletin-board of the leading Clintonian politicians of the state. It was the paper which chiefly influenced members of the legislature while in session. Above all, its proprietors were sure of an income from the public printing. As for news, Albany or any other inland point was in those days almost as well situated as New York. There was no competition in the dissemination of the latest intelligence. Partisan information was desired, and in that department the Register could speak with authority.
When De Witt Clinton, covered with the reproach of his opposition to Madison in 1812, was cast out of the Republican synagogue, the Register fell with him into the outer darkness of "Clinton's big ditch." The new commanders of democracy, Martin Van Buren and others associated with Governor Tompkins, promptly established, January 26, 18 13, a new paper called the Argus, to feed at the state printing crib, and to act as file-leader for all the orthodox Republican newspapers of the state. They selected as its editor a moderate and discreet man named Jesse Buel, who could be depended upon to obey orders. Any important proclamations were contributed directly by some member of the Regency, Marcy, Wright, Dix, or even by Van Buren himself. The country editors of the Bucktail faith scanned the Argus for the materials of leading articles in their weekly issues, and they accepted its opinions as inspired revelations. And they were. No man could become editor of the Argus unless he was acceptable to the Regency. "Without a paper thus edited at Albany," wrote Mr. Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt in 1823, "we may hang our harps on the willows. With it the party can survive a thousand convulsions." In that year the oracle was intrusted to the discretion of a young hierophant named Edwin Croswell. Mr. Croswell was
