Ames wrote a good many newspaper essays. This was a habit which he always kept up, particularly after his retirement. About 1800, on the election of Jefferson, he was very active in starting a Federal paper in Boston, the Palladium, and wrote for it constantly. He had great fears for his country from the predominance of French influence, and deemed it the duty of a patriot to enlighten his countrymen on the character and tendency of political measures. His biographer informs us that these essays were the first drafts, and they appear as such. The language is appropriate and often very felicitous, but they are diffuse and not always systematic. There is considerable argument in them, but more of explanation, appeal and ornament. He wrote to set facts before the people, and to urge them to vigilance and activity; and his essays are in fact so many written addresses. They cost him no labor in their composition, being on subjects that he was constantly revolving in his mind. They used to be written whenever he found a spare moment and a scrap of paper, while stopping at a tavern, at the printing office in Boston, or while waiting for his horse; and are apparently expressed just as they would have been if he were speaking impromptu. We have heard him characterized by one of his old friends as essentially a poet; but it would be more correct to say, that he was altogether an orator. He had indeed the characteristics of an orator in a rare degree, and these show themselves in every thing he does. While his mind was clear and his powers of reasoning were exceedingly good, imagination, the instinctive perception of analogies, and feeling predominated. His writings do not justify his fame; yet viewed as what they really are, the unlabored transcripts of his thoughts, they are remarkable. The flow of language, the wit, the wealth and aptness of illustration, the clearness of thought, show an informed and superior mind. They have here and there profound observations, that show an acquaintance with the principles of government and with the human heart, and are full of testimonials to the purity of the author's patriotism, and the goodness of his heart. Besides the essays that are published among his works, he wrote many others perhaps equally good, as well as numerous short, keen paragraphs, adapted to the time, but not suitable for republication. He also wrote verses occasionally, among others "an Ode by Jefferson" to the ship that was to bring Tom Paine from France, in imitation of Horace's to the vessel that was to bear Virgil from Athens.