h were doubtless of a mixed nature.
That he was sincere in his advocacy of Reform must in all fairness be
conceded, though his itch for notoriety must always be considered in
reviewing and estimating his actions. This tendency of his mind would
readily lead him to select journalism as his vocation in life, more
especially as he found that his opinions were regarded as having some
value. As compared with his life in Britain, his career in Canada had
been an undoubted success. He had acquired some property, and was in
fair pecuniary circumstances. From the inner side of his counter he had
been in the habit of holding forth to his customers on the political and
other questions of the day, and had found that his arguments were
accepted by a majority of the unlettered yeomen of Wentworth as being
unanswerable. He was looked up to as a man of weight and influence in
the community, and the consciousness of this was naturally gratifying to
the whilom shop-boy of Dumfries. He felt incited to address larger
audiences than any which had hitherto listened to him. The time seemed
propitious for the establishment of a Reform newspaper. There was a
general awakening in the direction of Reform, extending over the greater
part of the Province. There could be no sort of doubt that public
opinion was in a state of transition: that many people had begun to look
forward to a time when Responsible Government would be conceded, and
when the domination of the Compact would be no more. When that
much-wished-for epoch should arrive, those who had been the means of
bringing it about, or of hastening its advent, would stand high among
the Reformers of Upper Canada. Who would be likely to stand higher than
a clever and aspiring man who was at once editor and proprietor of the
leading organ of Liberal opinion in the Province? Such a personage might
command anything within the power of his party to grant. That he would
soon be able to write his way into Parliament was a foregone conclusion;
and a seat in Parliament appeared a very proud distinction in the eyes
of one whose past surroundings had been so far removed from such a
sphere.

That these, or something like these, were among the chief motives
whereby Mr. Mackenzie was actuated in establishing _The Colonial
Advocate_ seems tolerably certain. Nor is there anything unusual or
censurable in such an ambition. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and
no labourer is better entitled to a full recompens