The Manifesto was published in two versions (October 11, 1849 and December 1849) by the Annexation Association, an alliance of 325 Montreal businessmen.[Note 1] Most of these were English-speaking Tories, who were opposed to Britain's abolition of the Corn Laws, which ended preferential colonial trade,[2] and by its consent to the Rebellion Losses Bill, and French Canadian nationalists (including Louis-Joseph Papineau) who supported the republican system of government in the United States.[3][1][4] These businessmen believed that so long as the Provinces of Canada were under British rule, it would be subjected to the interests of elements of Britain's aristocracy and businessmen.