who resented it. His writing attracted the attention of some reform-minded members of the Scottish nobility: Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone, became his patron. In 1792 he published The Political Progress of Britain, a critique of war, imperialism, and corruption. He fled to Ireland and to the United States to avoid prosecution. After Callender left Scotland, Lord Gardenstone exposed him as the author; the journalist's reputation also was marred by the rumor that he had implicated Gardenstone. Philadelphia Callender quickly gained a position as a Congressional reporter in Philadelphia and wrote anonymously for the partisan press. His first American article lambasted pro-war sentiment. Although he was frequently dogged by poverty and unemployment, by 1794 Callender was a regular freelance commentator on American politics and he would remain at the epicenter of the political life within the new nation until his death. Over the next few years, while living by ghostwriting and piecemeal assignments, Callender became one of a group of radical Republican journalists who socialized together and held similar views on democracy and economic nationalism. During this period, he produced a series of pamphlets in which he attempted to frame a comprehensive political theory, advocating for the government's duty to the poor (in the form of progressive taxation), economic independence from Europe, and the promotion of native industry. These goals put him at odds with the Federalists as well as with some of the more conservative and agrarian Republicans. His writings attacked Federalist positions with a mix of reasoned argument, satire, and personal invective. His first pamphlet challenged the introduction of an excise tax into American commerce, but it was his invective against America's early national heroes — George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton — and against their policies and failings, that gained him notoriety. In his pamphlet, A History of the United States for the Year 1796, published in installments in the late spring and early summer of 1797, he exposed the sexual relationship between Hamilton and a married woman, Maria Reynolds, and Hamilton's alleged financial corruption. Callender presented compelling evidence of adultery, but in the 1798 Sketches of the History of America, he wrote that the affair was a distraction from Hamilton's greater offense: partnering with Reynolds' husband in corrupt financial dealings. On August 25, 1797, Hamilton published his own pamphlet in response, later known as, The Reynolds Pamphlet, denying being a party to any improper financial matter,