Page:Statement of facts relating to the trespass on the printing press in the possession of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, in June, 1826.djvu/19

 few pounds by such a trade, rather than by the honest exercise of his mind and hands, could thus scatter his base calumnies to excite the hatred of the malignant, and the ridicule of the unfeeling, to inflict pain and injury for which he could never atone?

If I speak warmly on this subject, it is because I am myself an instance of the most cruel persecution of this heartless man. I never had with him either transaction or dispute of any kind—I held no situation that made me responsible for any act of the Government, or that gave me any share in their measures—I am not, and never was, a politician, not having either the station or the disposition, and not pretending to the talent that leads a person into that path; if any merit belongs to me for it, I had, like almost every other person, allowed his slanderous attacks upon myself and others to pass unnoticed. I never condescended to be the author of a line in print in which he or his Colonial Advocate was spoken of.

But this signified nothing—I was connected with persons who served the Government—in an humble office I had the honor to serve it myself. I was, as every man of character is, the friend of those Gentlemen whom he thought it his interest to abuse most; and I had a Mother and a Wife, whose feelings he might wound, and Children, whose love and respect for their Father might make them one day feel their share of the pain, to which they could not yet be sensible.

These were, in Mr. Mackenzie's eyes, sufficient reasons, for I can fancy no other, for stigmatizing me in his paper as a Murderer—in his paper, which he boasted of sending to all corners of the world, and which you all know he sent to all who would receive it, and to hundreds who would not.

In making this charge, he knew he should be understood