Lord Durham left Quebec on November 1, {114} 1838. 'It was a sad day and a sad departure,' wrote Buller. 'The streets were crowded. The spectators filled every window and every house-top, and, though every hat was raised as we passed, a deep silence marked the general grief for Lord Durham's departure.' Durham had been in Canada only five short months. Yet in that time he had gained a knowledge of, and an insight into, the Canadian situation such as no other governor of Canada had possessed. The permanent monument of that insight is, of course, his famous _Report on the Affairs of British North America_, issued by the Colonial Office in 1839. This is no place to write at length about that greatest of all documents ever published with regard to colonial affairs. This much, however, may be said. In the _Report_ Lord Durham rightly diagnosed the evils of the body politic in Canada. He traced the rebellion to two causes, in the main: first, racial feeling; and, secondly, that 'union of representative and irresponsible government' of which he said that it was difficult to understand how any English statesman ever imagined that such a system would work. And yet one of the two chief remedies which he recommended seemed like a death sentence passed on the French in Canada. {115} This was the proposal for the legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada with the avowed object of anglicizing by absorption the French population. This suggestion certainly did not promote racial peace. The other proposal, that of granting to the Canadian people responsible government in all matters not infringing 'strictly imperial interests,' blazed the trail leading out of the swamps of pre-rebellion politics.