[186] The following extract is from a cleverly-written letter signed "O. P. Q.," which appeared in the _Courier_ of June 5th, 1834. It spoke the sentiments of nearly all the newspapers in the country, of whatsoever shade of politics: "But for that letter the people of this Province might long remain in ignorance of the real motives by which your conduct has been actuated. They might long regard you as a persecuted patriot.... But your imprudence or your vanity has been the means of completely unmasking and placing you before the people of this country in all the naked deformity of an acknowledged traitor. Henceforth you must be content to be regarded as the secret abettor of a heartless conspiracy.... Do not think, Sir, that these are the sentiments of a violent political opponent who approves of the measures adopted towards you by the House of Assembly.... These views, Sir, are the views of a man who has ever denounced the course your adversaries have pursued towards you as unwise, unjust and unconstitutional. They are the sentiments of a man who, if he had the power to punish the persons who first rose you from poverty, ignominy and ruin, to comparative affluence and popular notoriety, would have sent the destroyers of your press to less favoured regions. They are the sentiments of one who had up to the publication of the letter ... regarded you as a man attached to the institutions of your country.... It is an old adage, 'Give him rope enough,' etc. You have a moderate quantity, and if the avowal of such sentiments as you have lately promulgated do not afford you a few yards more, you may regard yourself as infinitely more fortunate than many better and bolder men."