Despite the poetic adage about the course of true love, that of Joseph Gales ran smooth: Miss Marshall accepted his suit and they were married. Never were husband and wife better mated. They lived together most happily and long,—she dying, at an advanced age, only two years before him. Meantime, she had, from the first, brought him some marriage-portion beyond that which the Muses are wont to give with their daughters,—namely, laurels and bays; and she bore him three sons and five daughters, near half of whom the parents survived. Three (Joseph the younger, Winifred, and Sarah, now Mrs. Seaton) were born in England; a fourth, at the town of Altona, (near Hamburg,) from which she was named; and the rest in America.
To resume this story in the order of events. Mr. Gales went on with his journal, and when it had grown quite flourishing, he added to his printing-office the inviting appendage of a book-store, which also flourished. In the progress of both, it became necessary that he should employ a clerk. Among the applicants brought to him by an advertisement of what he needed, there presented himself an unfriended youth, with whose intelligence, modesty, and other signs of the future man within, he was so pleased that he at once took him into his employment,—at first, merely to keep his accounts,—but, by degrees, for superior things,—until, progressively, he (the youth) matured into his assistant editor, his dearest friend, and finally his successor in the journal. That youth was James Montgomery, the poet.
On the 10th of April, 1786, Mrs. Gales gave birth, at Eckington, their rural home, to her first child, Joseph, the present chief of the "Intelligencer." [Mr. Gales has since died.] Happy at home, the young mother could as delightedly look without. The business of her husband throve apace; nor less the general regard and esteem in which he was personally held. He grew continually in the confidence and affection of his fellow-citizens; endearing himself especially, by his sober counsels and his quiet charities, to all that industrious class who knew him as one of their own, and could look up without reluctance to a superiority which was only the unpretending one of goodness and sense. Over them, without seeking it, he gradually obtained an extraordinary ascendancy, of which the following is a single instance. Upon some occasion of wages or want among the working-people of Sheffield, a great popular commotion had burst out, attended by a huge mob and riot, which the magistracy strove in vain to appease or quell. When all else had failed, Mr. Gales bethought him of trying what he could do. Driven into the thick of the crowd, in an open carriage, he suddenly appeared amongst the rioters, and, by a few plain words of remonstrance, convinced them that they could only hurt themselves by overturning the laws, that they should seek other modes of redress, and meantime had all better go home. They agreed to do so,—but with the condition annexed, that they should first see him home. Whereupon, loosening the horses from the carriage, they drew him, with loud acclamations, back to his house.
Such were his prospects and position for some seven years after his marriage, when, of a sudden, without any fault of his own, he was made answerable for a fact that rendered it necessary for him to flee beyond the realm of Great Britain.
As a friend to Reform, he had, in his journal, at first supported Pitt's ministry, which had set out on the same principle, but which, when the revolutionary movement in France threatened to overthrow all government, abandoned all Reform, as a thing not then safe to set about. From this change of views Mr. Gales dissented, and still advocated Reform. So, again, as to the French Revolution, not yet arrived at the atrocities which it speedily reached,—he saw no need of making war upon it. In its outset, he had, along with Fox and other Liberals, applauded it; for it then professed little but what Liberals wished to see brought about in England. He still thought it good for France, though not for his own country. Thus, moderate as he was, he was counted in the Opposition and jealously watched.
It was in the autumn of 1792, while he was gone upon a journey of business, that a King's-messenger, bearing a Secretary-of-State's warrant for the seizure of Mr. Gales's person, presented himself at his house. For this proceeding against him the following facts had given occasion. In his office was employed a printer named Richard Davison,—a very quick, capable, useful man, and therefore much trusted,—but a little wild, withal, at once with French principles and religion, with conventicles, and those seditious clubs that were then secretly organized all over the island. This person corresponded with a central club in London, and had been rash enough to write them, just then, an insurrectionary letter, setting forth revolutionary plans, the numbers, the means they could command, the supplies of arms, etc., that they were forming. This sage epistle was betrayed into the hands of the Government. The discreet Dick they might very well have hanged; but that was not worth while. From his connection with the "Register," they supposed him to be only the agent and cover for a deeper man,—its proprietor; and at the latter only, therefore, had they struck. Nothing saved him from the blow, except the casual fact of his absence in another country, and their being ignorant of the route he had taken. This his friends alone knew, and where to reach him. They did so, at once, by a courier secretly despatched; and he, on learning what awaited him at home, instead of trusting to his innocence, chose rather to trust the seas; and, making his way to the coast, took the only good security for his freedom, by putting the German Ocean between him and pursuit. He sailed for Amsterdam, where arriving, he thence made his way to Hamburg, at which city he had decided that his family should join him. To England he could return only at the cost of a prosecution; and though this would, of necessity, end in an acquittal, it was almost sure to be preceded by imprisonment, while, together, they would half-ruin him. It was plain, then, that he must at once do what he had long intended to do, go to America.
Accordingly, he gave directions to his family to come to him, and to Montgomery that he should dispose of all his effects and settle up all his affairs. These offices that devoted friend performed most faithfully; remitting him the proceeds. The newspaper he himself bought and continued, under the name of the "Sheffield Iris." Still retaining his affection for the family, he passed into the household of what was left of them, and supplied to the three sisters of the elder Joseph Gales the place of a brother, and, wifeless and childless, lived on to a very advanced age, content with their society alone. The last of these dames died only a few months ago.
At Hamburg, whence they were to take ship for the United States, the family were detained all the winter by the delicate health of Mrs. Gales. This delay her husband put to profit, by mastering two things likely to be needful to him,—the German tongue and the art of short-hand. In the spring, they sailed for Philadelphia. Arrived there, he sought and at once obtained employment as a printer. It was soon perceived, not only that he was an admirable workman, but every way a man of unusual merit, and able to turn his hand to almost anything. By-and-by, reporters of Congressional debates being few and very indifferent, his employer, Claypole, said to him,—"You seem able to do everything that is wanted: pray, could you not do these Congressional Reports for us better than this drunken Callender, who gives us so much trouble?" Mr. Gales replied, with his usual modesty, that he did not know what he could do, but that he would try.
The next day, he attended the sitting of Congress, and brought away, in time for the compositors, a faithful transcript of such speeches as had been made. Appearing in the next morning's paper, it of course greatly astonished everybody. It seemed a new era in such things. They had heard of the like in Parliament, but had scarcely credited it. Claypole himself was the most astonished of all. Seizing a copy, he ran around the town, showing it to all he met, and still hardly comprehending the wonder which he himself had instigated. It need hardly be said that here was something far more profitable for Mr. Gales than type-setting.
But to apply this skill, possessed by none else, to the exclusive advantage of a journal of his own was yet more inviting; and the opportunity soon offering itself, he became the purchaser of the "Independent Gazetteer," a paper already established. This he conducted with success until the year 1799, making both reputation and many friends. Among the warmest of these were some of the North Carolina members, and especially that one whose name has ever since stood as a sort of proverb of honesty, Nathaniel Macon. By the representations of these friends, he was led to believe that their new State capital, Raleigh, where there was only a very decrepit specimen of journalism, would afford him at once a surer competence and a happier life than Philadelphia. Coming to this conclusion, he disposed of his newspaper and printing-office, and removed to Raleigh, where he at once established the "Register." Of his late paper, the "Gazetteer," we shall soon follow the fortunes to Washington, where it became the "Intelligencer": meantime, we must finish what is left to tell of his own.