I suppose it is in the very nature of an autobiography to be egotistical, a fault which I have desired to avoid; but find that my own personal affairs have been often so strangely interwoven with public events, that I could not make the one intelligible without describing the other. My departure from Quebec, for instance, was caused by circumstances which involved many public men of that day, and made me an involuntary party to important political movements.

I have mentioned that, with the sanction of the Upper Canadian section of the Ministry, I had commenced the publication in Quebec of a daily newspaper with an evening edition, under the title of the Advertiser. I strove to make it an improvement upon the style of then existing Quebec journals, but without any attempt at business rivalry, devoting my attention chiefly to the mercantile interests of the city, including its important lumber trade. I wrote articles describing the various qualities of Upper Canadian timber, which I thought should be made known in the British market. This was to some degree successful, and as a consequence I gained the friendship of several influential men of business. But I did not suspect upon how inflammable a mine I was standing. A discourteous remark in a morning contemporary, upon some observations in the Courrier du Canada, in which the ground was taken by the latter that French institutions in Europe exceeded in liberality, and ensured greater personal freedom than those of Great Britain, and by consequence of Canada, induced me to enter into an amicable controversy with the Courrier as to the relative merits of French imperial and British monarchical government. About the same time, I gave publicity to some complaints of injustice suffered by Protestant--I think Orange--workmen who had been dismissed from employment under a local contractor on one of the wharves, owing as was asserted to their religious creed. Just then a French journalist, the editor of the Courrier de Paris, was expelled by the Emperor Louis Napoleon for some critique on "my policy." This afforded so pungent an opportunity for retort upon my Quebec friend, that I could not resist the temptation to use it. From that moment, it appears, I was considered an enemy of French Canadians and a hater of Roman Catholics, to whom in truth I never felt the least antipathy, and never even dreamt of enquiring either the religious or political principles of men in my employment.

I was informed, that the Hon. Mr. Cartier desired that I should discontinue the Advertiser. Astonished at this, I spoke to one of his colleagues on the subject. He said I had been quite in the right; that the editor of the Courrier was a d--d fool; but I had better see Cartier. I did so; pointed out that I had no idea of having offended any man's prejudices; and could not understand why my paper should be objectionable. He vouchsafed no argument; said curtly that his friends were annoyed; and that I had better give up the paper. I declined to do so, and left him.

This was subsequent to the events related in Chapter xlix. I spoke to others of the Ministers. One of them--he is still living--said that I was getting too old [I was fifty], and it was time I was superannuated--but that--they could not go against Cartier! My pride was not then subdued, and revolted against such treatment. I was under no obligations to the Ministry; on the contrary, I felt they were heavily indebted to me. I waited on the Hon. L. V. Sicotte, who was on neutral terms with the government, placed my columns at his disposal, and shortly afterwards, on the conclusion of an understanding between him and the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald, to which the Hon. A. A. Dorion was a party, I published an article prepared by them, temperately but strongly opposed to the policy of the existing government. This combination ultimately resulted in the formation of the Macdonald-Sicotte Ministry in 1862.

But this was not all. The French local press took up the quarrel respecting French institutions--told me plainly that Quebec was a "Catholic city," and that I would not be allowed to insult their institutions with impunity--hinted at mob-chastisement, and other consequences. I knew that years before, the printing office of a friend of my own--since high in the public service--had been burnt in Quebec under similar circumstances. I could not expose my partners to absolute ruin by provoking a similar fate. The Protestants of the city were quite willing to make my cause a religious and national feud, and told me so. There was no knowing where the consequences might end. For myself, I had really no interest in the dispute; no prejudices to gratify; no love of fighting for its own sake, although I had willingly borne arms for my Queen; so I gave up the dispute; sold out my interest in the printing contract to my partners for a small sum, which I handed to the rightful owner of the materials, and left Quebec with little more than means enough to pay my way to Toronto.