ABSTRACT
In 1838 John George Lambton, fi rst Earl of Durham, was sent by the new Queen Victoria to British North America to try and sort out the mess created the year before by rebellions in the colonies of both Upper and Lower Canada (what are today the provinces of Ontario and Québec). In his infl uential report, Lord Durham (1839) wrote:
I expected to fi nd a contest between a government and a people: I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state: I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races; and I perceived that it would be idle to attempt any amelioration of laws or institutions until we could fi rst succeed in terminating the deadly animosity that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and English.
