In all, Coleman was well fitted to become the leading Federalist editor of the nation. The _Evening Post_ was expected by the party chieftains to take a prompt and vigorous stand on every great public question, and to voice an opinion which lesser journals could echo. It was a heavy responsibility. “The people of America derive their political information chiefly from newspapers,” wrote Callender in 1802. “Duane upon one side, and Coleman upon the other, dictate at this moment the sentiments of perhaps fifty thousand American citizens.” When in 1807 the first journal of the party was established at the new capital, Jonathan Findley’s Washington _Federalist_, its founder, after enumerating all the requisites of an editor, named Coleman as their foremost exemplar. “I cannot, in the field of controversy, vie with a Coleman.” In the summer of 1802 Coleman was nicknamed the “Field-marshal of the Federal Editors” by his opponent Callender, and the fitting appellation stuck. Wielding a ready pen, Coleman was apt in literary allusions. His knowledge of law enabled him to write with authority upon legislation, constitutional questions, and practical politics. Unlike his successor Bryant, he mingled freely with men in places of public resort, and kept his ear to the ground. He took an interest in letters and the drama which was quite unknown to other “political editors.” Some pretensions to being an authority upon style he always asserted, and he never tired of correcting the errors of Democratic scribblers. Against certain expressions he made a stubborn battle--for example, against “averse from” instead of “averse to,” and against “over a signature” instead of “under” it; in 1814 he offered $100 for every instance of the last-named phrase in a good author since Clarendon. He was excessively generous, always ready to lend his ear to a pitiful story; Dr. John W. Francis relates that his eyes would moisten over the woes of one of the paper-boys. This kindliness made the columns of the _Evening Post_ always open to charitable or reformative projects. Coleman’s chief faults were three. His style, like Hamilton’s, was diffuse; he sometimes forgot taste and decency in assailing his opponents; and he was a wretched business man. A few years after the journal was founded its money affairs fell into such embarrassment that friends intervened, and an arrangement was made by which Michael Burnham, the printer, became half owner, with entire control of the finances. II