A few days later Dr. Ryerson received another letter from Mr. Griffin, in which he truthfully says:--
Perhaps there have not been many instances in which sophistry has been applied more effectually to injure an individual, or a body of Christians, as in the present instance. Whigs, tories, and radicals have all united to crush, I may say at a blow, the Methodists, and none have tried to do so more effectually than Mr. W. L. Mackenzie. He persisted in it so as to make his friends generally believe that the cause of reform was ruined by you. His abuse of you and your friends, and the Methodists, is more than I can stand. He has certainly manifested a great want of discernment, or he has acted from design. I see that the Hamilton _Free Press_ has called in the aid of Mr. F. Collins, of the _Canadian Freeman_, to assist in abusing you and your whole family.
From Augusta, Rev. Anson Green wrote about the same time, and in a similar strain, but not so sympathetically. He says:--
I fear your impressions are bad ones. Our people are all in an uproar about them.
_Nov. 22nd._--Rev. William Ryerson writing from Kingston at this time, reports the state of feeling there. He says:--
As to the _Guardian_, I am sorry to inform you that it is becoming less popular than formerly. If your English "impressions" are not more acceptable and useful in other parts than they are here, it will add little to your credit, or to the usefulness of your paper to publish any more of them. I know that you have been shamefully abused, and treated in a most base manner, and by no one so much so as by Mr. Radcliffe of the Cobourg _Reformer_. I hope you will expose the statements and figures of the _Reformer_ to our friends. It is rather unfortunate that if you did intend, as is said, to conciliate the Tory party in this country, you should have expressed yourself in such a way as to be so much misunderstood.
_Nov. 23rd._--Rev. Alvah A. Adams, writing from Prescott, says:--
There are a few disturbances in our Zion. Some are bent on making mischief. You need not be surprised that the Grenville _Gazette_ speaks so contemptuously of you and the cause in which you have been, and are still, engaged. There are reasons why you need not marvel at the great torrent of scurrilous invectives with which his useless columns have of late abounded.