Durham was determined to begin with a clean slate. With a characteristic disregard for precedent, he dismissed the existing Executive Council as well as Colborne's special band of advisers, and formed two new councils in their place, consisting of {10} members of his personal staff, military officers, Canadian judges, the provincial secretary, and the commissary-general. Together they formed a committee of investigation and advice; and, being composed of both local and non-local elements, it was a committee specially fitted to supply the necessary information, and to judge all questions dispassionately from an outside point of view. This committee acting with the High Commissioner took the place of regular constitutional government in Lower Canada. It was an arbitrary makeshift adopted to meet a crisis. During the long, tedious voyage of the _Hastings_ the High Commissioner had not been idle. He had worked steadily for many hours a day at the knotty Canadian question, studying papers, drafting plans, discussing point after point with his secretaries. Once in the country, he set to work in the most thoroughgoing and systematic way to gather further knowledge. He appointed commissions to report on all special problems of government--education, immigration, municipal government, the management of the crown lands. He obtained reports from all sources; he conferred with men of all shades {11} of political opinion; he called representative deputations from the uttermost regions under his sway; he made a flying visit to Niagara in order to see the country with his own eyes and to study conditions. Such labours were beyond the capacity of any one man; but Durham was ably supported by his band of loyal helpers and a public eager to co-operate. The result of all this activity was the amassing of the priceless data from which was formed the great document known as Lord Durham's Report. It is generally overlooked that at this period Canada stood in danger from external as well as internal enemies. Hardly had Durham landed at Quebec when there occurred a series of incidents which might have led to war between Great Britain and the United States. A Canadian passenger steamer, the _Sir Robert Peel_, sailing from Prescott to Kingston, was boarded at Wells Island by one 'Bill' Johnson and a band of armed men with blackened faces. The passengers and crew were put ashore without their effects, and the steamer was set on fire and destroyed. Very soon afterwards an American passenger steamer was fired on by over-zealous sentries at Brockville. Together {12} the twin outrages were almost enough, in the state of feeling on both sides, to set the Empire and the Republic by the ears.