y. The domination of the
mother country is as necessary to our present happiness and future
greatness as the mother's breast is to the infant." "There can be but
one opinion," said _The British American Journal_, of St. Catharines,
"in the minds of honest men, relative to the sentiments contained in
this letter. That they are seditious and revolutionary is painfully
evident; besides the language in which it is couched, the brief
reference to the important subjects treated of, and the peculiar manner
of its appearance before the Canadian public, irresistibly force the
conclusion upon our mind that it is the premature disclosure of a plan
long premeditated to separate the Canadas from the empire of Great
Britain, and either annex them to the confederated union of the States,
or establish separate independent republic Governments; as far as the
author or publisher of the letter is concerned, it is immaterial which."
Mackenzie himself was characterized as a man who was doing his best to
drive the people headlong and blindfold into rebellion. Such being the
tone of the Liberal press, that of the Tory journals may readily be
conceived. Some of them demanded that the Government should institute an
immediate prosecution of Mackenzie. Indignation meetings were held all
over the Province, at which loyal addresses to His Majesty were passed.
The Methodist Conference and other bodies, secular as well as religious,
hastened to pass resolutions condemnatory of Mr. Hume's sentiments, and
to forward the same to the Lieutenant-Governor. The excitement in
Toronto was tremendous. Before noon of the day on which the offensive
letter appeared in print a public meeting had been called to protest
against the disloyal sentiments embodied in it. It was numerously
attended, and, though a good many Reformers were present, a vote of
censure on Mackenzie was passed without a dissentient voice. The matter
was brought up in the City Council, and, though the support of the
Reform members enabled him to escape the official censure of that body,
he was compelled to submit to a series of criticisms which must have
been exceedingly galling to his feelings. By this one misguided act he
had contrived to do enough harm to far more than counterbalance any good
which had been effected through his mission to England; and there were
many Reformers who, in spite of all his protestations, never again felt
any confidence in him, politically or otherwise.

In his ca