An Economic Tyranny Existed in Upper Canada

The Almanack, like many numbers of the Advocate, is a fair indication of the two chief British influences on Mackenzie's thought--the poetry of Robert Burns, and the British periodicals of intelligent commentary and opinion.... Just as in Scotland, an economic tyranny existed in Upper Canada: "Our farmers are indebted to our country merchants, our country merchants are deeply bound down in the same manner to the Montreal wholesale dealers." And when Mackenzie denounced the commercial tyrants he often added a verse from Burns to drive his point home.

--William Kilbourn, The Firebrand: William Lyon Mackenzie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada, Voyageur Classics (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008), 135.