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The notable Whig politician John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, was sent to the Canadas in 1838 to investigate and report on the causes of the rebellions of 1837-38. Durham arrived in Quebec City on May 27. He had just been appointed Governor General and given special powers as high commissioner of British North America.
Durham had spoken to merchants in Britain who wanted greater English control over the Canadas, as they felt the French Canadians' presence in Lower Canada undermined their economic interests.
In Canada, he formed numerous committees formed of essentially all the opponents of the Patriotes and made many personal observations of life in the colonies. He also visited the United States. Durham wrote that he had assumed he would find that the rebellions were based on liberalism and economics, but he eventually concluded that the real problem was the ethnic conflict between French and English. According to Durham, the French culture in Canada had changed little in 200 years, and showed no sign of progressProgress can refer to: The idea of a process in which societies or individuals become better or more modern (technologically and/or socially). To be able to decide if something is progressive or not, if something is better or more modern than something el like English culture had. His report contains the famous assessment that Canada consisted of "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state."
Durham recommended that UpperUpper Canada is an early name for the land at the upstream end of the Saint Lawrence River in early North America the territory south of Lake Nipissing and north of the St. Lawrence River and Lakes Ontario and Erie plus the eastern shoreline of Georgian B and Lower Canada be united into one province, which would give English Canadians a slight advantage in population. He also encouraged immigration to Canada from Britain, to further marginalize the supposedly backwards French Canadians and hopefully assimilate them into English culture. The freedoms granted to the French Canadians under the Royal Proclamation of 1763The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763 by the British government in the name of King George III to prohibit settlement by British colonists beyond the Appalachian Mountains in the lands captured by Britain from France in the French and and the Quebec ActThe Quebec Act of 1774 was an act by the British Parliament setting out procedures of governance in the area of Quebec. After the Seven Years' War, a victorious Great Britain achieved a peace agreement through the Treaty of Paris (1763). Under the terms o of 1775Events February 9 American Revolutionary War: British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion March 23 American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his speech " give me liberty or give me death" in Williamsburg, Virginia. April 14 American Re should also be rescinded; according to Lord Durham this would eliminate the possibility of future rebellions. The French Canadians did not necessarily have to give up their religion and language entirely, but it could not be protected at the expense of what Durham considered a more progressive English culture.