In the beginning of 1825, William Lyon Mackenzie presented a petition to the house of assembly to have the affairs of the post office investigated. Mackenzie, who had come to Upper Canada in 1820, was engaged in business until 1824, when, impressed with the various political abuses from which the country was suffering, he abandoned what had every appearance of a successful career, and gave himself to agitation. He established a newspaper--_The Colonial Advocate_--in 1824, and in 1828 secured a seat in the house of assembly. These vehicles of publicity he employed in ceaseless attacks on the governing clique, which from the intimacy of the ties binding its members together was known as the Family Compact, and became the principal actor in the abortive rebellion of 1837. The post office as then managed incurred his unremitting hostility. A committee was appointed having as chairman Captain John Matthews, who represented the county of Middlesex along with Dr. Rolph, subsequently one of the leaders of rebellion in 1837. Matthews was a retired army officer, who entertained advanced political views, which were irritating to the lieutenant governor. He was later on made to feel the lieutenant governor's resentment for his opposition. As chairman of the committee Matthews reported on the 9th of March, 1825,[203] that it was in evidence that there were abuses which would be remedied, if the post offices in the province were, as they should be, under the control and supervision of the legislature. The committee found that there were many populous districts, in which post offices were much required; that many postmasters performed their duties indifferently, letters and newspapers being opened and read before being delivered; and that complaints to the deputy postmaster general had no appreciable effect. The mail bags, the committee also discovered, were often filled with goods, having nothing to do with the post office, to the injury of contractors as well as of the post office revenues. Editors of newspapers, it was also ascertained, suffered from the hardship of having to pay the postage on their newspapers in advance, and the committee recommended that the postage on newspapers should be collected as the postage on letters was, from those who received the newspapers. Letters on public business should, in the opinion of the committee, be carried free of postage; and the surplus revenue should be expended on the public roads and bridges which were in a deplorable state. The final conclusion of the committee was that the provincial legislature should take on itself the entire management of the post office, even though this should involve some temporary expense. It was not anticipated that such would be the case, but in any event the deficits would be of short duration.