Another Scotchman, who came to the country some years later than the bishop, was William Lyon Mackenzie, who was always remarkable for his impulsiveness and rashness, which led him at last into difficulties and wrecked his whole career. He had a deep sense of public wrongs, and placed himself immediately in the front rank of those who were fighting for a redress of undoubted grievances. He was thoroughly imbued with the ideas of English radicalism, and had an intense hatred of Toryism in every form. He possessed little of that strong common sense and power of acquisitiveness which make his countrymen, as a rule, so successful in every walk of life. When he felt he was being crushed by the intriguing and corrupting influences of the governing class, aided by the lieutenant-governor, he forgot all the dictates of reason and prudence, and was carried away by a current of passion which ended in rebellion. His journal, _The Colonial Advocate_, showed in its articles and its very make-up the erratic character of the man. He was a pungent writer, who attacked adversaries with great recklessness of epithet and accusation. So obnoxious did he become to the governing class that a number of young men, connected with the best families, wrecked his office, but the damages he recovered in a court of law enabled him to give it a new lease of existence. When the "family compact" had a majority in the assembly, elected in 1830, he was expelled five times for libellous reflections on the government and house, but he was re-elected by the people, who resented the wrongs to which he was { 350} subject, and became the first mayor of Toronto, as York was now called. He carried his grievances to England, where he received much sympathy, even in conservative circles. In a new legislature, where the "compact" were in a minority, he obtained a committee to consider the condition of provincial affairs. The result was a famous report on grievances which set forth in a conclusive and able manner the constitutional difficulties under which the country laboured, and laid down clearly the necessity for responsible government. It would have been fortunate both for Upper Canada and Mackenzie himself at this juncture, had he and his followers confined themselves to a constitutional agitation on the lines set forth in this report. By this time Robert Baldwin and Egerton Ryerson, discreet and prominent reformers, had much influence, and were quite unwilling to follow Mackenzie in the extreme course on which he had clearly entered. He lost ground rapidly from the time of his indiscreet publication of a letter from Joseph Hume, the English radical, who had expressed the opinion that the improper proceedings of the legislature, especially in expelling Mackenzie, "must hasten the crisis that was fast approaching in the affairs of Canada, and which would terminate in independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother-country." Probably even Mackenzie and his friends might have been conciliated and satisfied at the last moment had the imperial government been served by an able and discreet lieutenant-governor. But never did the imperial authorities make a greater mistake than { 351} when they sent out Sir Francis Bond Head, who had no political experience whatever.