nder the wreckage new lines of constructive effort were
forming. The rebellion had at least proved that the old order was
doomed. For half a century the attempt had been made to govern the
Canadas as separate provinces and with the half measure of freedom
involved in representative government. For the next quarter of a century
the experiment of responsible government together with union of the two
provinces was to be given its trial.

The union of the two provinces was the phase of Durham's policy which
met fullest acceptance in England. It was not possible, in the view of
the British Ministry, to take away permanently from the people of Lower
Canada the measure of self-government involved in permitting them to
choose their representatives in a House of Assembly. It was equally
impossible, they considered, to permit a French-Canadian majority ever
again to bring all government to a standstill. The only solution of
the problem was to unite the two provinces and thus swamp the French
Canadians by an English majority. Lower Canada, Durham had insisted,
must be made "an English province." Sooner or later the French Canadians
must lose their separate nationality; and it was, he contended, the part
of statesmanship to make it sooner. Union, moreover, would make possible
a common financial policy and an energetic development of the resources
of both provinces.

This was the first task set Durham's successor, Charles Poulett Thomson,
better known as Lord Sydenham. Like Durham he was a man of outstanding
capacity. The British Government had learned at last to send men of the
caliber the emergency demanded. Like Durham he was a wealthy Radical
politician, but there the resemblance ended. Where Durham played the
dictator, Sydenham preferred to intrigue and to manage men, to win them
by his adroitness and to convince them by his energy and his business
knowledge. He was well fitted for the transition tasks before him,
though too masterful to fill the role of ornamental monarch which the
advocates of responsible government had cast for the Governor.

Sydenham reached Canada in October, 1839. With the assistance of James
Stuart, now a baronet and Chief Justice of Lower Canada, he drafted a
union measure. In Lower Canada the Assembly had been suspended, and the
Special Council appointed in its stead accepted the bill without serious
demur. More difficulty was found in Upper Canada, where the Family
Compact, still entrenched in the L