However, in most editorials upon national affairs the _Evening Post_ displayed a breadth and coolness reflecting the sagacity of the Federalist leaders who helped shape its policy. From the outset it pressed the Federalist contention that everything should be done to develop a merchant marine and a strong navy; the aggressions of the Barbary pirates being frequently cited to prove the necessity for the latter. The Gallophile craze of Democratic circles was attacked week in and week out. When the claims of the sufferers by French spoliations were surrendered by the Administration, the indignation of the journal was outspoken. The destruction of most of the internal revenue system which Hamilton had laboriously built up was a cause of much beating of the breast. Not merely did it weaken the Federal Government, said the _Evening Post_; the nabob Virginia planter was given his carriage untaxed, and the Western backwoodsman his whisky, while the poor Eastern artisan still had to pay taxes upon his sugar, coffee, and salt. The pretensions of Gallatin to rival Hamilton as a master of finance were ridiculed. The repeal of the judiciary act passed under Adams was opposed as both unconstitutional and inexpedient. But the primary achievement of Jefferson’s administration, the Louisiana purchase, was treated in a tone so unlike that of other Federalist journals that it is clear Hamilton guided Coleman’s pen. That noisy, artificial denunciation which went up from most Federalists was thoroughly discreditable. The _Evening Post_ admitted that “it is an important acquisition”; that it was “essential to the peace and prosperity of our western country”; that it opened up “a free and valuable market to our commercial states”; and that “it will doubtless give éclat to Jefferson’s Administration.” Of course it did its best to spit into the Democratic soup. It asserted that Jefferson merited little credit for the purchase, since the fruit was knocked into his lap by the great losses of the French in the Dominican insurrection, and by the constant threat of the British to seize Louisiana. This was true, for Jefferson had set out only to buy an island for a dockyard, and had been momentarily bewildered when Napoleon offered the whole western domain. No one at that time understood the real value of the purchase, for Louisiana was an untraversed land, believed to be largely desert. Hence it is not surprising to find the _Evening Post_ asserting that the region was worth nothing for immediate settlement, especially since not one sixteenth the original area of the republic was yet occupied; and that its chief use might well be as something to barter for the Floridas, “obviously of far greater value to us than all the immense, undefined region west of the river.”