Earl of Durham, on the contrary, has recommended it as a measure for cementing the existing bond of union with the mother country."[61] Their programme was precise and consistent. The influence of a too democratic franchise was to be modified by a Conservative upper house, and an executive council, chosen not in accordance with popular wishes, but from the class--their own--which had so long been dominant in the executive. The British connection depended, in their view, on the permanent alliance between their group and whatsoever representative the British crown might send to Canada. French Canadian feeling they were prepared to repress as a thing rebellious and un-English, and the {62} friends of the French in Upper Canada they regarded very much as a South African might the Englishman who should be prepared to strengthen his political position by an alliance with the native peoples; although events were to prove that, when other elements of self-interest dictated a different course, they were not unwilling to co-operate in the interests of disorder with the French. In ecclesiastical affairs, they supported the establishment of an Anglican Church in Canada, and insulted religion never found more eloquent defenders than did the Clergy Reserve establishment at the hands of Sir Allan MacNab, the Conservative leader, and his allies. But events and their own factious excesses had broken their power. They had allowed nothing for the possibilities of political education, in a land where the poorest had infinite chances of gaining independence. They scorned democracy at a time when nothing else in politics had a stable future; and the country naturally distrusted constitutional logicians whose conclusions invariably landed them in the sole possession of emoluments and place. Sydenham's quick eye foresaw the coming rout, and it was his opinion, before the Assembly of 1841 came to make matters certain, that moderate men would overturn the {63} sway of old Toryism, and that the wild heads under MacNab would stultify themselves by their foolish conduct.[62]