its most important city?

No sooner was the number of the _Advocate_ containing this letter in the
hands of the public than an outcry arose on every hand. The Tories saw
their advantage, and made the most of it. Now, it was said, the real
designs of Mackenzie and those who acted with him were no longer masked.
What they wanted was not constitutional Reform, but separation from the
Empire, and the establishment of a republic. And it was not only Tories
who spoke and felt thus. Persons who cordially hated the domination of
the Compact, and who had condemned the treatment of Mackenzie as
unconstitutional, tyrannical and unjust, now felt that such a man
deserved no sympathy. He was evidently a rebel at heart.[186] He had
brought reproach not only on himself, but upon the party to which he
belonged. Reform journals hastened to signify their repudiation of the
sentiments of the objectionable letter. "We profess ourselves Radical
Reformers," said the _Freeman_, "and willing to go any reasonable length
in correcting abuses, because we know extensive grievances have existed
both in the mother country and in these colonies.... but we cannot bring
ourselves to support violent and unprincipled factions." "It has often
been the misfortune," said _The British Whig_, of Kingston, "for those
who have laboured to emancipate the people of this colony from Tory
misrule to be accused of disaffection to the mother country, and of a
design to effect the substitution of a republican mode of Government for
their present monarchical form. That no accusation is more generally
false we are thoroughly satisfied; and yet, owing to the indiscreetness
of certain writers, the enemies of political change have had too many
opportunities afforded them to ground their assertions on something like
proof. Here is a letter published by a leading Reformer, without one
single remark in detestation of the doctrine it promulgates.... Does Mr.
Mackenzie sincerely believe that the independence of this Province
would be beneficial to its inhabitants; or is he of opinion that the
domination of the mother country is baneful? If he answer in the
negative, as we think he will, why in the name of common sense did he
afford his enemies so much occasion to brand him with disloyalty?" Said
_The Free Press_, of Hamilton, "It is not the domination of the mother
country that Reformers complain of; it is only the tyrannical conduct of
a small and despicable faction in the colon