lend his aid to promote the political views of his instructor,
especially as he would thus uphold the principles which he had cherished
from boyhood. From year to year, the election of Mr. Ruggles to the
State legislature was strongly opposed. Cilley's services in overcoming
this opposition were too valuable to be dispensed with; and thus, at a
period when most young men still stand aloof from the world, he had
already taken his post as a leading politician. He afterwards found
cause to regret that so much time had been abstracted from his
professional studies; nor did the absorbing and exciting nature of his
political career afford him any subsequent opportunity to supply the
defects of his legal education. He was admitted an attorney-at-law in
1829, and in April of the same year was married to Miss Deborah Prince,
daughter of Hon. Hezekiah Prince of Thomaston, where Mr. Cilley
continued to reside, and entered upon the practice of his profession.

In 1831, Mr. Ruggles having been appointed a judge of the court of
common pleas, it became necessary to send a new representative from
Thomaston to the legislature of the State. Mr. Cilley was brought
forward as the Democratic candidate, obtained his election, and took his
seat in January, 1832. But in the course of this year the friendly
relations between Judge Ruggles and Mr. Cilley were broken off. Time
former gentleman, it appears, had imbibed the idea that his political
aspirations (which were then directed towards a seat in the Senate of
the United States) did not receive all the aid which he was disposed to
claim from the influence of his late pupil. When, therefore, Mr. Cilley
was held up as a candidate for re-election to the legislature, the whole
strength of Judge Ruggles and his adherents was exerted against him.
This was the first act and declaration of a political hostility, which
was too warm and earnest not to become, in some degree, personal, and
which rendered Mr. Cilley's subsequent career a continual struggle with