the Council, and trying to induce the members to take
sides. His indiscretion in the matter of the famous "baneful domination"
letter is absolutely incomprehensible. The particulars can only be given
very briefly in these pages.

During the month of May, Mr. Mackenzie received from Joseph Hume, the
Radical member for Middlesex in the British House of Commons, an
extraordinary letter--a letter which, for violence of tone and
intemperance of language, might almost have been written by the editor
of the _Advocate_ himself. It referred to the Reverend Egerton Ryerson,
a leading minister of the Methodist Church and editor of _The Christian
Guardian_, in terms which it is astonishing to think that a gentleman in
Mr. Hume's position should have permitted himself to employ. Now,
Mackenzie had quarrelled with Mr. Ryerson not long before, and had
devoted much space in the _Advocate_ to maligning him. He saw here an
opportunity for a further attack, with which view he deliberately
published "copious extracts"[183] from the letter in the issue of his
paper dated the 22nd of May. The effect was electrical, for the
references to Mr. Ryerson, bad as they were, were not the portions of
the letter most calculated to excite astonishment in the public mind.
The phrase which called forth prompt execration from all classes of the
community was one in which the writer, referring to Mackenzie's last
election to the Assembly and his expulsion therefrom, characterized
those proceedings as events which must hasten the crisis that was fast
approaching in the affairs of the Canadas, and which would "terminate in
independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother
country." These extraordinary words--extraordinary as proceeding from a
British statesman to a colonist who was likewise a public
character--were printed in the _Advocate_, like the rest of the letter,
in large type. It was subsequently urged[184] on Mr. Hume's behalf that
he had not meant to imply _separation_ from the mother country, but only
an end to the false and pernicious system of governing the colony; and
this explanation was admitted by him[185] to express what he had
intended to signify. But if Mr. Hume could write so indiscreetly on such
a subject, what is to be thought of the newspaper editor and the
politician who had no better sense than to give such a production to the
world of Upper Canada, more especially while he himself occupied the
position of mayor of