as the
opportunity and inclination to go minutely into the question will be
irresistibly driven to the conclusion that there was some sort of
understanding among the chiefs of the official party that the
publication of the _Advocate_ was to be stopped, and that its editor was
to be either driven out of the country or reduced to silence.

In the meantime Mr. Mackenzie himself had serious difficulties to
contend with. The _Advocate_, notwithstanding its considerable
circulation, did not yield any appreciable income. Subscribers were
backward in their payments, and the cost of making collections reduced
the profit to little or nothing. The postage to country subscribers had
to be paid in advance by the publisher, which was in itself a
considerable drain upon his resources. The issue of the paper was
moreover necessarily attended by a good deal of expense. It did not
appear regularly, and the intervals between successive numbers were
sometimes of considerable duration. This irregularity was a serious
drawback to its prosperity, and a source of much dissatisfaction to its
patrons. Such a combination of discouragements could have but one
result. By the beginning of June, 1826, Mr. Mackenzie had been reduced
to serious pecuniary embarrassment, and had temporarily withdrawn
himself from the jurisdiction, pending an arrangement with his
creditors. It is in the highest degree improbable that another number of
the paper would ever have been issued. It was moribund, if not already
dead. But when matters had arrived at this pass, the violence of
Mackenzie's enemies led them to commit an act of lawless ruffianism
which gave the _Advocate_ a new lease of life. The act moreover aroused
much popular indignation against the perpetrators, and a proportionate
degree of sympathy for their victim, to whom it gave additional
importance, while it at the same time materially improved his financial
condition.

During the spring of the year 1826 the _Advocate's_ criticisms upon
certain members of the oligarchical faction were marked by exceptional
acerbity. The persons attacked, however, sought in vain throughout the
closely-packed columns for any material upon which a criminal
prosecution might be founded; for Mr. Mackenzie, whether by prudence or
good fortune, contrived for some weeks to say very acrid things without
rendering himself liable to an indictment. Among the persons who were
compelled to pass through the fire of his criticism was t