This was the situation when the uprising of 1837-38 took place. The seigneurial system was not a leading cause of the rebellion, but it was one of the grievances included by the habitants in their general bill of complaint. Hence, when Lord Durham came to Quebec to investigate the causes of colonial discontent, the system came in for its share of study. In his masterly Report on the Affairs of British North America he recognized that the old system had outlived its day of usefulness, and that its continuance was unwise. But Durham outlined no plan for its abolition. He believed that if the province were given a government responsible to the masses of its own people, the problem of abolition would soon be solved. One of Durham's secretaries, Charles Buller drafted a scheme for commuting the tenures into freehold, but his plan did not find acceptance. For nearly twenty years after Durham's investigation the question of abolishing the seigneurial tenures remained a football of Canadian politics. Legislative commissions were appointed; they made investigations; they presented reports; but none succeeded in getting any comprehensive plan of abolition on the statute-books. In 1854, however, the question was made a leading issue at the general election. A definite mandate from the people was the result, and 'An Act for the Abolition of Feudal Rights and Duties in Lower Canada' received its enactment during the same year. The provisions of this act for changing all seigneurial tenures into freehold are long and somewhat technical. They would not interest the reader. In brief, it was arranged that the valid rights of each seigneur should be translated by special commissioners into an annual money rental, and that the habitants should pay this annual sum. The seigneur was required to pay no quit-rent to the public treasury. What he would have paid, by reason of getting his own lands into freehold, was applied pro rata to the reduction of the annual rentals payable by the habitants. It was arranged, furthermore, that any habitant might commute this yearly rental by paying his seigneur a lump sum such as would represent his rent capitalized at the rate of six per cent.