No sooner was the number of the _Advocate_ containing this letter in the hands of the public than an outcry arose on every hand. The Tories saw their advantage, and made the most of it. Now, it was said, the real designs of Mackenzie and those who acted with him were no longer masked. What they wanted was not constitutional Reform, but separation from the Empire, and the establishment of a republic. And it was not only Tories who spoke and felt thus. Persons who cordially hated the domination of the Compact, and who had condemned the treatment of Mackenzie as unconstitutional, tyrannical and unjust, now felt that such a man deserved no sympathy. He was evidently a rebel at heart.[186] He had brought reproach not only on himself, but upon the party to which he belonged. Reform journals hastened to signify their repudiation of the sentiments of the objectionable letter. "We profess ourselves Radical Reformers," said the _Freeman_, "and willing to go any reasonable length in correcting abuses, because we know extensive grievances have existed both in the mother country and in these colonies.... but we cannot bring ourselves to support violent and unprincipled factions." "It has often been the misfortune," said _The British Whig_, of Kingston, "for those who have laboured to emancipate the people of this colony from Tory misrule to be accused of disaffection to the mother country, and of a design to effect the substitution of a republican mode of Government for their present monarchical form. That no accusation is more generally false we are thoroughly satisfied; and yet, owing to the indiscreetness of certain writers, the enemies of political change have had too many opportunities afforded them to ground their assertions on something like proof. Here is a letter published by a leading Reformer, without one single remark in detestation of the doctrine it promulgates.... Does Mr. Mackenzie sincerely believe that the independence of this Province would be beneficial to its inhabitants; or is he of opinion that the domination of the mother country is baneful? If he answer in the negative, as we think he will, why in the name of common sense did he afford his enemies so much occasion to brand him with disloyalty?" Said _The Free Press_, of Hamilton, "It is not the domination of the mother country that Reformers complain of; it is only the tyrannical conduct of a small and despicable faction in the colony. The domination of the mother country is as necessary to our present happiness and future greatness as the mother's breast is to the infant." "There can be but one opinion," said _The British American Journal_, of St. Catharines, "in the minds of honest men, relative to the sentiments contained in this letter. That they are seditious and revolutionary is painfully evident; besides the language in which it is couched, the brief reference to the important subjects treated of, and the peculiar manner