the National Reform Association in February 1844. Its goal was to distribute public lands to people who would live on the property, limit the amount of land an individual could own, and outlaw the confiscation of free homesteads given to settlers. He spoke at many meetings and remained on the association's central committee until July 1844. In July 1844, Mackenzie was nominated as an inspector at the New York custom house, but this was withdrawn after American Whig newspapers criticized him for being an immigrant. He was instead appointed as a clerk in the custom house's archives office. Mackenzie copied the private letters of Jesse Hoyt, a New York State politician, which described negotiations for financial transactions in exchange for government appointments by New York State government officials. After submitting his resignation from the custom house in June 1845, Mackenzie published some of the letters as Lives and Opinions of Benjamin Franklin Butler and Jesse Hoyt. It sold 50,000 copies and made $12,000 () in profit before an injunction stopped the book's sale. The pamphlet's profits were given to the publishers because Mackenzie did not want to benefit from exposing a scandal. In April 1846, Mackenzie published another book based on Hoyt's letters called Life and Times of Martin Van Buren: The Correspondence of His Friends, Family, and Pupils. This book criticized Van Buren and contained Mackenzie's commentary on American politics. In October 1845, Mackenzie published the second volume of The Sons of the Emerald Isle. Horace Greeley hired him to go to Albany, New York, and report on the New York State Constitutional Convention for the New-York Tribune. He continued to work for the Tribune until his resignation in April 1848. Return to Canada (1849–1858) Amnesty and return to Canada After the Upper Canada Rebellion, British colonial officials sent Lord Durham to investigate its causes. Durham sent an agent to interview Mackenzie for the report, who told the agent that his grievance against the Upper Canadian government was the composition of the Legislative Council and his desire "to lift the hand of tyranny from the soil". Durham's finding were presented to the British government as the Durham Report and recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be merged into the Province of Canada, which occurred in 1840. After the 1848 election, Reformers held a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and the BaldwinLafontaine ministry