Page:Statement of facts relating to the trespass on the printing press in the possession of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, in June, 1826.djvu/22

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the Colonial Advocate. No one has greater reason than myself to wish that not another had—for in that case, my first notice of Mr. Mackenzie's Press, would have been spared as well as this; the last, I trust, which I shall ever feel it necessary to take of him, or of his trade of calumny, which he has since driven, and which he, no doubt, will continue to drive so long as it suits his purpose, and is permitted to go unpunished.

But the rancor of Mr. Mackenzie's mind was not yet satisfied. He had, up to the moment of his hasty departure, shot his poisoned arrows where he pleased—he had had every thing his own way—and even when he left his trade and his country together, he yielded only to a necessity of his own creating. But what was his last resource? He went to Lewiston, to be sure—and took up his residence in the United States—but he left as managing Journeyman at York, a Person who had some years ago, been convicted of a seditious Libel, and pardoned upon his earnest assurance, no doubt, of repentance—and, in the hands of this man, and two or three apprentices, the Press was still left to usher into the world, under the conduct of no person apparently responsible, such falsehoods as Mr. Mackenzie, now out of the reach of Justice, might choose to send them, from a foreign country.

When the first number that was printed, under these extraordinary circumstances, made its appearance, it is not to be wondered, that all had not patience under such an abuse.

Mr. Mackenzie has affected to record the eighth day of June, as a sort of era in this Province, because it was signalized by a trespass on a Press, which, in his hands, had been used only to destroy whatever was most valuable in public or private life; and which he had so abused, that he had actually accomplished with it, at last his own destruction.