Page:Statement of facts relating to the trespass on the printing press in the possession of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, in June, 1826.djvu/20

 by all who read his paper here, to be alluding to an occurence, the most distressing of my life, which he has, within these few days, unreservedly recurred to in his paper, endeavoring to attach to it every feeling of horror for which falsehood could invent a motive.

I will not, I cannot, for for feeling forbids me, dwell upon the circumstances of a misfortune which the heart of no man should have suffered him wantonly to recall to the recollection of those whose affliction may have been at least alleviated by time—it is not necessary I should. Conscious that I acted under a fatal necessity, which the condition of human society imposes, I surrendered myself unhesitatingly to the officers of Justice—I endured imprisonment, unmitigated by favor—I underwent a public trial under circumstances of peculiar disadvantage, and was readily acquitted by a Jury of my Countrymen. The whole melancholy story has been long given to the world. I will not do such injustice to myself, or such violence to the best feelings of mankind, as affect to be without that lasting sensation of regret, which the greatest of misfortunes has unavoidably occasioned, and which it is my lot, as it has been the lot of many with whom I cannot presume to compare myself, to bear and to lament.

After Mr. Mackenzie had, in defiance of all shame and of every feeling of restraint, sent into the world the very disgraceful Papers I have alluded to, and in particular that of 18th May, 1826, which I have already mentioned, he seemed to consider it a very necessary measure of prudence to keep himself as much as possible from the view and contact of the society which he had insulted.

He could not indeed have walked into the street, without meeting the husband, son, or brother of some female whose feelings he had outraged, and scarcely indeed without meeting some