If the plan had been put to execution we would have had the first presidential "platform" as early as 1800, and Jefferson would thus have hastened the formation of distinct political parties. But more commonplace measures were not to be neglected. Discussing the situation in North Carolina, still a very doubtful State, he advised that "the medicine for that State must be very mild and secretly administered. But nothing should be spared to give them true information." We would like Jefferson better if he had shown more discrimination in the choice of the men selected to disseminate this true information. For at that time, at least, he was still employing Callender in Richmond--an amusing scoundrel not much better than Cobbet, the Peter Porcupine of the Federalists. But Callender was a useful tool, who was doing his utmost to publish the second volume of the _Prospect_ and to catch up with Federalist propaganda. One could condone much in a man then writing: "I had entertained the romantic hope of being able to overtake the Federal Government in its career of iniquity. But I am now satisfied that they can _act_ much faster than I _can write_ after them."[397] Fortunately he had the approval and indorsement of much more respectable characters. Samuel Adams had already written him; then it was John Dickinson, the Revolutionary hero, who wrote, when sending his thanks for a copy of the late "Resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia": "It is an inestimable contribution to the cause of Liberty.... How incredible was it once, and how astonishing is it now, that every measure and every pretense of the stupid and selfish Stuarts, should be adopted by the posterity of those who fled from this madness and tyranny to the distant wilds of America."[398] Such letters, the congratulations of George Wythe, who urged him to publish the "Manual of Parliamentary Practice", those of Pendleton, who consented to revise the final text and to "freely cast his mite into the treasury", were indeed balm on the wounds made by the fierce attacks of the Federalist press.[399] The end of the session was approaching and the most earnest desire of the Federalists was to adjourn as soon as possible, for fear that the envoys to France should announce the conclusion of a treaty. Their power seemed on the wane, but Jefferson was still very doubtful of ultimate victory. To Livingston he wrote that his knowledge of the art, industry, and resources of the other party did not permit him to be prematurely confident. The tide had turned, to be sure, and the Federalists were losing ground constantly, but the main question whether "that would insure a Republican victory was still undecided and it might take one or two elections more."[400]