Prosecutions for libel had become unpopular. The case of Francis Collins had aroused such a clamour that it was not deemed wise to try further experiments in that direction. In April, 1828--about the same time when measures had been instituted against Collins--an indictment for libel had actually been laid against Mackenzie for a paragraph published in the _Advocate_, in which the Crown lawyers and other supporters of the Government had been referred to in contumelious terms, and wherein a hope had been expressed that the constituencies returning certain Tory members to Parliament would clear the Assembly of "the whole of that ominous nest of unclean birds."[150] But the Attorney-General, after keeping the prosecution impending over the defendant's head for many months, had seen fit to abandon it. The times, in fact, had ceased to be propitious for libel prosecutions, and some other way out of the difficulty had to be found. The device actually hit upon to get rid of Mackenzie's opposition in the Assembly was worthy of the minds which had plotted the ruin of Captain Matthews, Justice Willis and Francis Collins. Mackenzie, who had the contract for printing the journals of the House, and who generally had a number of copies of those journals on hand, had distributed a hundred and sixty-eight of them throughout some of the constituencies just prior to the last general election. This had been done at his own expense, and in the interest of the Reform candidates; for he believed that no more effective campaign document could be devised than a truthful record of the proceedings in the House. But as strict matter of Parliamentary law he had been guilty of a breach of privilege, no one having a right to publish reports of the proceedings of the Houses without authority. The existence of such a rule is perhaps salutary, as there are conceivable cases in which it would be inexpedient to allow such publication. But, as everybody knew, Parliament had long been accustomed to wink at perpetual violations of this rule. Newspapers all over the world had been permitted, and even encouraged, to transgress it. Some of the leading organs of public opinion in different parts of the world had built up their reputations mainly by the fulness and accuracy of their reports of Parliamentary proceedings. Nothing can be more certain than that there would have been no talk about enforcing the obsolete rule at this time but for the fact that it seemed to afford a pretext for punishing the man whom the Government party wished to destroy. The attempt to enforce it was not a success. The motion to that end was made by Allan MacNab, and was to the effect that Mackenzie had abused the trust reposed in him as the printer of the journals, by distributing portions of the same for political purposes, and among persons not entitled to copies thereof, thereby committing a breach of the privileges of the House. The junior member