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witness to the policy. It was with high satisfaction that he reported that during his command he had made it his constant care and attention to see that the Canadians should be treated agreeable to his majesty's kind and humane intentions. No invasion on their properties or insult on their persons have gone unpunished. All reproaches on their subjection by the fate of arms, revilings on their customs or country, and all reflections on their religion have been discountenanced and forbid. No distinction has been made betwixt the Briton and Canadian, but equally regarded as subjects of the same prince. The soldiers live peaceably with the inhabitants and they reciprocally acquire an affection for each other.' Murray recorded that even those who were deceived by the many arrant falsehoods and atrocious lies' of interested persons were won over by the 'lenity, the impartial justice that has been administered ’. The general feeling between the soldiers and the inhabitants was one of harmony unexampled at home'. When war and famine had fallen hard on the people, British officers of every rank subscribed largely for relief, and private soldiers threw in their mite or gave a day's provisions or a day's pay in the month. He flattered himself that no military government was ever better conducted than his had been, and that he had gained the affection and gratitude of the Canadians,3 who themselves acknowledged that Murray and his military council administered to them all the justice that we could have expected from the most enlightened jurists '.4 The seigniors declared their love for Murray as the father' and 'protector' of the people. They praised his charity, wise decisions, and

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Militaire, 1760-1764' (Proceedings and Transactions, Royal Society of Canada, 2nd series, vol. xi, pp. xxvii ff.).

1 Gage to Amherst, March 20, 1762, Shortt and Doughty, op. cit., pp. 91 ff. 2 Murray to Amherst, June 5, 1762, ibid., p. 80.

3 Letter Book of General Murray, vol. i, January 26, 1764 (Canadian Archives).

4 Shortt and Doughty, op. cit., p. 227.

mildness of administration, resulting in a tranquillity which almost made them forget their mother country.1

If there existed material for trouble, it lay in two spheres, that of religion, where freedom was at issue, and that of finance, where bills of exchange created difficulties. When the colony was invaded by the British, the church thundered against the heretics and schismatics. The fall of Montreal brought an official change, but the curés obeyed the letter and not the spirit of the episcopal orders. There was a general suspicion lest the freedom of religion granted at the capitulations would be changed. Murray noted the importance of the problem, and Gage analysed the state of mind with astute criticism. A working arrangement with France over the thousands of bills of exchange which had been issued by the French officials to pay for the army, removed to a large extent one source of dissatisfaction; but from the days of the régime militaire ' the fears with regard to religion never entirely disappeared. It is significant that when, in days to come, French-Canadian patriotism, strengthened by racial and political trouble within and revolutions without, sought concrete expression in propaganda, religion was not entirely forgotten, though guarded and guaranteed by Act of parliament.

The 'régime militaire' need cause no regrets to the conquerors. It compared more than favourably with French rule in the Palatinate and along the banks of the Rhine and with the lot of the Acadians. For the conquered it brought a longdesired peace, an opportunity to resent attempts at seigniorial arrogance and to dispute the tithes with the curés'. Military rule, just and equitable, made little difference to a people who had no abstract idea of patriotism. The truth is that both in

1 Canadian Archives Report, 1888, pp. 19 ff.

2 Cf. Gage to Egremont, February 12, 1763, and Murray to Halifax, October 23, 1763, State Papers, Q. 1, pp. 64, 250 (Canadian Archives).

3 Kennedy, Documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1759–1915, pp. 6, 10 (Oxford, 1918).

Canada and in France, on the eve of the peace of Paris, there were no regrets. Voltaire's plans with Choiseul and Mme de Pompadour to force the abandonment of the colony, and his luxurious celebration of the fact in his château at Ferney, reflected the general French attitude.1 In Canada the habitants at the hour of their abandonment found in British officers kindly step-fathers; and with looks half turned across the Atlantic and half turned to the kindly conquerors, they accepted a decision of the sword which was tempered with uniform consideration and humanity.

[AUTHORITIES.—The most important documents are in A. Shortt and A. G. Doughty, Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791 (Ottawa, 1918); in the Haldimand Papers and the State Papers, Q. 1-Q. 2 (Canadian Archives); in Doutre and Lareau, Le Droit Civil Canadien (Montréal, 1872). Interesting sidelights are found in the Letter Books of General Murray (Canadian Archives). The main authority for the period is Règne Militaire en Canada. . . du 8 septembre 1760 au 10 août 1764 (Mémoire de la Société historique de Montréal, No. 5, Montréal, 1870). Miss J. N. McIlwraith's Sir Frederick Haldimand (Toronto, 1904) contains valuable material from the Haldimand Papers.]

1 See a valuable note in F. X. Garneau, Histoire du Canada, vol. ii, app. i, pp. 719 ff. (cinquième edition, Paris, 1920).

CHAPTER V

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT

IN QUEBEC

THE far-flung Seven Years War at last reached an official end with the signing of the peace of Paris, February 10, 1763, and all the French possessions in North America, except the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, were ceded to Great Britain. During the negotiations Canada was weighed in the balance against Guadeloupe, so little were its possibilities understood.1 To contemporary eyes it was a place fit only to send exiles to, as a punishment for their past ill-spent lives'. Great Britain, however, felt the necessity of relieving the Thirteen Colonies from the French menace which had irritated them so long, and Canada passed to the British crown. Apart from this deciding issue, Canada was a mere detail in an unsolved problem in which predominated vast unsettled lands, Indian trade, and European settlements outside organized administration.

When the British government began to turn its attention 'to the establishment of civil government in the territories ceded by the treaty', the efforts made to disentangle the various difficulties were neither clear nor definite. At first, care was mostly directed to the affairs of settlement and of the Indians, and a proclamation was planned dealing with these matters. Later, provisions were introduced into the proclamation creating and defining four distinct and separate governments-Quebec, East and West Florida, and the island of Grenada-but to each was granted an identically vague

1 See an interesting discussion of contemporary opinion in W. L. Grant, ' Canada versus Guadeloupe: an Episode of the Seven Years War' (American Historical Review, July 1912, pp. 735 ff.).

2 General Murray's Correspondence, bundle viii (Canadian Archives).

system of law and administration, without the slightest attention being paid to differences in development, population, and political experience. The royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, gave Quebec its first civil government under British rule.1 The ambiguous terms of the grant and the fact that they were due to an after-thought illustrate the initial casual interest in the administration of the province. In the following November, however, a commission was issued appointing Murray 'captaingeneral and governor-in-chief in and over our province of Quebec in America', and this was amplified a month later by more detailed instructions.3 Civil government was actually established on August 10, 1764.4 Murray had thus three documents to guide him: the royal proclamation, his commission, and his instructions.

The proclamation, as far as the new province of Quebec was concerned, merely outlined an administration for the settled parts of New France. The boundaries were such that the western country, with its trading posts extending to the prairies and to the Mississippi valley, was left under the control of the department of Indian affairs and outside the government of Quebec. Executive authority was placed in the hands of a governor and council. The former was instructed, so soon as the state and circumstances of the said colon[y] will admit thereof, to call a popular assembly similar to those in the

1 Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 18 ff.

2 Shortt and Doughty, op. cit., pp. 173 ff.

3 Ibid., pp. 181 ff.

4 See above, p. 24, note 2.

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5 'The government of Quebec, bounded on the Labrador coast by the river St. John, and from thence by a line drawn from the head of that river through the lake St. John to the south end of the lake Nippissim; from whence the said line, crossing the river St. Lawrence, and the lake Champlain, in 45 degrees of north latitude, passes along the high lands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the said St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea; and also along the north coast of the Bay des Chaleurs, and the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosières, and from thence crossing the mouth of the river St. Lawrence by the west end of the island of Anticosti, terminates at the aforesaid river of St. John.'

D