From these personal matters he returned to the abuses that had been discovered by the commission. A terrible story of neglect and cruelty was told. These charges did not rest on the testimony of prisoners. They were sustained by the evidence of officers and by the records of the institution. "If," said the speaker, "every word of the witnesses called by the commissioners were struck out, and the case left to rest on the testimony of the warden's own witnesses and the official records of the prison, there would be sufficient to establish the blackest record of wickedness that ever disgraced a civilized country." Amid applause, expressions of amazement and cries of "Shame!" from the galleries, Brown told of the abuses laid bare by the prison commission. He told of prisoners fed with rotten meal and bread infested with maggots; of children beaten with cat and rawhide for childish faults; of a coffin-shaped box in which men and even women were made to stand or rather crouch, their limbs cramped, and their lungs scantily supplied with air from a few holes. Brown's speech virtually closed the case, although Macdonald strove to prove that the accounts of outrages were exaggerated, that the warden, Smith, was himself a kind-hearted man, and that he had been harshly treated by the commissioners. In a letter written about this time, Macdonald said that he was carrying on a war against Brown, that he would prove him a most dishonest, dishonourable fellow, "and in doing so I will only pay him a debt that I owe him for abusing me for months together in his newspaper."[10] Whatever the provocation may have been, the personal relations of the two men were further embittered by this incident. Eight years afterwards they were members of the coalition ministry by which confederation was brought about, and Brown's intimate friend, Alexander Mackenzie, says that the association was most distasteful to Brown, on account of the charges made in connection with the prison commission. That the leaders of the two parties were not merely political opponents but personal enemies must have embittered the party struggle; and it was certainly waged on both sides with fury, and with little regard either for the amenities of life or for fair play.