Page:Statement of facts relating to the trespass on the printing press in the possession of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, in June, 1826.djvu/13

 Province attacked with rancour and injustice. Indeed we all know this was the case, and that with respect to the Printer of one paper, he went to such unwarrantable lengths in conduct of this kind, that he was convicted and sentenced, for a seditious libel, to a very ignominious punishment, from which he was saved by the lenity of those against whom it bad been his whole employment, to endeavor to raise the hatred and indignation of the Country. But, then, let it be remembered, that although the Editors of these former Journals transgressed the laws, and became justly liable to punishment it was against Public Measures and Public Men that their efforts, however base and unprincipled, were directed.

A few years ago Mr. Mackenzie came to this Country, a perfect Stranger, and in the employment of a respectable man, who has since become a worthy and useful member of our Society—and how long before or after I do not know, but probably somewhere about the same time, Mr. Francis Collins, the present Editor of the Freeman, came here from another part of the United Kingdom, equally a Stranger to us all, and was, of course, like other strangers, at liberty to gain among us, without hindrance, an honest livelihood, by any lawful course. We saw both these persons, for several years, in this Town—the former apparently earning his support by attending the Shop of his Employer—the latter following his occupation of a Journeyman Printer in the Gazette Office. Why they did not continue in these employments, no one has any business to inquire—it is enough to know that no one of all those, whom they now spend their time in slandering, could have had any inducement to injure them in their several callings; and that no one did. They saw us living as people do in other societies, happily and harmoniously.—We had done so, for a long series of years, before they came among us. During that time some of our most respected inhabitants