The struggle for self-government seemed to have ended in deadlock and chaos. Yet under 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 Legislative Council, feared the risk to their own position that union would bring and shrank from the task of assimilating half a million disaffected French Canadians. But with the support of the Reformers and of the more moderate among the Family Compact party, Sydenham forced his measure through. A confirming bill passed the British Parliament; and on February 10, 1841, the Union of Canada was proclaimed.