without an election. Later life and death (1858–1861) At the end of 1858, Mackenzie collected petitions for the dissolution of the Province of Canada and planned to deliver them to the Colonial Office in England. The Homestead Fund, set up by James Lesslie to financially support Mackenzie, refused to fund the trip, so he travelled to New York to fundraise. He was unsuccessful so he cancelled his trip and returned to Toronto. He wrote Almanac for Independence and Freedom for 1860, which outlined arguments for dissolving the Province of Canada. In October he moved to a home in Toronto purchased by the Homestead Fund and ended publication of the Message on September 15, 1860, because of a lack of subscriptions. In 1861 his health deteriorated and he refused to take medication. At the end of August, he went into a coma and died on August28. His funeral procession stretched a half-mile (0.8 km) and included Reformers and Family Compact members. He was buried at Toronto Necropolis. A twelve-foot Celtic cross made of grey granite serves as a grave marker. He is buried with his wife, four of his children, his son-in-law Charles Lindsey, and his descendants. Writing style Mackenzie wrote about current events and topics he was thinking about at a particular moment. His writing format often lacked structure and used obscure references difficult for today's readers to understand. Historian Lillian F. Gates struggled to comprehend The Life and Times of Martin Van Buren because Mackenzie did not describe events chronologically and in her opinion used too many footnotes and large lists. Frederick Armstrong, another historian, said Mackenzie used long examples and had "excursions into trivia". William Kilbourn critiqued Sketches of Canada and the United States as unconcerned with conventional storytelling techniques or "a sense of order", and Charles Lindsey described the book as disregarding the order of the stories. Kilbourn stated the Colonial Advocates articles were better when read aloud and thought Mackenzie's slow pace was similar to "a three-volume Victorian novel". He described The Constitution as "baroque convolutions of style" adding "their harsh jumble of book learning are really not for the printed page". Anthony W. Rasporich differed in his analysis of Mackenzie's writing and believed it was exciting for both subscribers in the 1800s and contemporary readers in 1972. Mackenzie ignored possible consequences when publishing his work and chronicled other people's situations to explain complicated financial concepts.