At Raleigh he arrived under auspices which gave him not only a
reputation, but friends, to set out with. Both he soon confirmed and
augmented. By the constant merit of his journal, its sober sense, its
moderation, and its integrity, he won and invariably maintained the
confidence of all on that side of politics with which he concurred,
(the old Republican,) and scarcely less conciliated the respect of his
opponents. He quickly obtained, for his skill, and not merely as a
partisan reward, the public printing of his State, and retained it
until, reaching the ordinary limit of human life, he withdrew from the
press. In the just and kindly old commonwealth which he so long
served, it would have been hard for any party, no matter how much in
the ascendant, to move anything for his injury. For the love and
esteem which he had the faculty of attracting from the first deepened,
as he advanced in age, into an absolute reverence the most general for
his character and person; and the good North State honored and
cherished no son of her own loins more than she did Joseph Gales. In
Raleigh, there was no figure that, as it passed, was greeted so much
by the signs of a peculiar veneration as that great, stalwart one of
his, looking so plain and unaffected, yet with a sort of nobleness in
its very simplicity, a gentleness in its strength, an inborn goodness
and courtesy in all its roughness of frame,--his countenance mild and
calm, yet commanding, thoughtful, yet pleasant and betokening a bosom
that no low thought had ever entered.
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