The Browns arrived in Canada in the period of reconstruction following the rebellion of 1837-8. In Lord Durham's Report the rising in Lower Canada was attributed mainly to racial animosity--"two nations warring in the bosom of a single state"--"a struggle not of principles but of races." The rising in Upper Canada was attributed mainly to the ascendency of the "family compact"--a family only in the official sense. "The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the episcopal church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by their adherents; by grant or purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and till lately shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit. The bulk of this party consists, for the most part, of native born inhabitants of the colony, or of emigrants who settled in it before the last war with the United States; the principal members of it belong to the Church of England, and the maintenance of the claims of that Church has always been one of its distinguishing characteristics." Reformers discovered that even when they triumphed at the polls, they could not break up this combination, the executive government remaining constantly in the hands of their opponents. They therefore agitated for the responsibility of the executive council to the legislative assembly. Lord Durham's remedy was to unite Upper and Lower Canada, and to grant the demand for responsible government. He hoped that the union would in time dispose of the racial difficulty. Estimating the population of Upper Canada at four hundred thousand, the English inhabitants of Lower Canada at one hundred and fifty thousand, and the French at four hundred and fifty thousand, "the union of the two provinces would not only give a clear English majority, but one which would be increased every year by the influence of English immigration; and I have little doubt that the French, when once placed by the legitimate course of events and the working of natural causes, in a minority, would abandon their vain hopes of nationality."