very liberties so dear to eighteenth-century Englishmen, and promised with such lavish profusion, were strangely unsuited to a Roman catholic people, heirs to the apathy born of paternalism and still children in political development. To recast the people of New France was too great a task; to make them potential co-heirs with their British fellow citizens to institutions, laws, and systems which they did not understand was to court confusion; to attempt assimilation was to accentuate differences. The royal proclamation, though practically futile, hung over the heads of the French-Canadians, a political sword of Damocles. To the British in the colony it represented a broken treaty, a scrap of paper, an ideal to strive for, a promise to be fulfilled. Even the good intentions of men like Murray and Carleton only paved the via dolorosa to a constitutional calvary. When at last courage was stiffened by other circumstances, it was little wonder that the Quebec Act was grimly entitled 'An Act for making more effectual provision for the government of the Province of Quebec in North America'. [AUTHORITIES.-The important documents are in A. Shortt and A. G. Doughty, Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 17591791 (Ottawa, 1918); W. P. M. Kennedy, Documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1759–1915 (Oxford, 1918); Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development (Toronto, 1907); The State Papers, Q. 2-Q. 10 (Canadian Archives); The Letter Books of General Murray, and The Murray Papers (Canadian Archives); The Dartmouth Papers (Canadian Archives). The publications of Masères are important, especially A Collection of Several Commissions... relating to the state of the Province of Quebec (London, 1772) ; An Account of the Proceedings . . . to obtain a House of Assembly (London, 1775); Additional Papers concerning the Province of Quebec (London, 1776). W. S. Wallace, The Masères Letters (Toronto, 1919), contains valuable material T. Chapais, Notre Question religieuse en 1764' in Le Parler Français December 1917, pp. 145 ff., is suggestive and valuable.] 6 E CHAPTER VII THE QUEBEC ACT, 1774 THE serious consideration of a new constitution for Quebec appears to have been begun during the closing months of 1773. Voluminous as the early reports were which have just been considered, prolific as the promises had been since 1766 that the government of the province would soon be settled, there is reason to believe that the mass of material was not critically digested till within a few months of the introduction of the Quebec Act. It was not entirely irresponsible opposition which made Townshend twit Lord North on a delay that had issued in anarchy and confusion.1 However, when the subject was actually taken up, there was plenty of legal opinion, and much correspondence and consultation between the ministry, Carleton, Masères, Chief Justice Hey, and William Knox, under-secretary of state for the colonies, a man of considerable experience in English and American affairs. The bill passed through many hands and appeared in many forms before it was introduced on May 2, 1774, in the house of lords. Only a few members of either house thought it worth their while to remain in London to take part in or to listen to the discussions, and the bill received the royal assent on June 22. During its progress through the house of commons important debates took place which will be considered later in connexion with the origin of the Act. For the moment it is only necessary to remark that Carleton's ideas largely prevailed in the new instrument of government. 1 J. Wright, Cavendish's Debates... on the Bill for making more effectual provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec (London, 1839), pp. i ff. These debates are partially in Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 86 ff., and in Egerton and Grant, op. cit., pp. 23 ff. * See the various drafts in Shortt and Doughty, op. cit., pp. 535 ff. ... If the Quebec Act of 17741 is considered merely in its enactments and apart from everything else, generosity is written large over it. The Act might almost be summed up in the words of Burke with regard to state policy. the preservation of their old prejudices, their old customs by the bill, turns the balance in favour of France. The only difference is, they will have George the third for Louis the sixteenth.' The proclamation of 1763 as far as it applied to Quebec was revoked. A house of assembly was deemed inexpedient, and a nominated council was set up to assist the governor in legislation and in administration. A modified oath rendered it possible for Roman catholics to be admitted. The whole body of French civil law was revived. The Roman catholic church was given a legal status by the provision that tithes could be collected from its members by due process. This provision and the new oath seriously modified the Elizabethan Act of supremacy which guarded the religious grant. The regulations for taxation supplementary to the Act were embodied in a statute of the following year and only imposed duties analogous to those under the French régime. Explicit conciliation may not have been intended, but the duties were less obnoxious to the French-Canadian than to the British element, who had already begun to disseminate ideas in the matter of taxation similar to those which had gained force in the Thirteen Colonies, and were threatening disintegration. Under the proclamation of 1763 there was evidently an intention of creating a government for the trading country of the west, which, as a matter of fact, remained for ten years without any formal administration. Labrador, Anticosti, and the Magdalen Islands had been included under the government of Newfoundland. The fishing and fur-trading interests in Quebec protested against this arrangement, and economically 1 Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 132 ff. (14 Geo. III, c. 83). 2 Cavendish, op. cit., p. 289. * Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 136 ff. (14 Geo. III, c. 88). much might be said in favour of a reconstruction of the boundaries. In spite of opposition from the secretary of state for the colonies, the Quebec Act reannexed Labrador to the province, and extended the boundaries to include not only modern Ontario but the limitless country indefinitely bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and by the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company.1 There is concession here, for the intention, as will appear later, was to preserve the western hinterland as a vast French and Indian reserve to the exclusion of other settlers. The machinery of government set up by the Quebec Act and amplified by instructions to the governor 2 was practically that 1 All the territories, islands, and countries in North America, belonging to the crown of Great Britain, bounded on the south by a line from the Bay of Chaleurs, along the Highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the sea, to a point in forty-five degrees of north latitude on the eastern bank of the river Connecticut, keeping the same latitude directly west through the Lake Champlain, until in the same latitude it meets the river St. Lawrence; from thence up the eastern bank of the said river to the Lake Ontario ; thence through the Lake Ontario and the river commonly called Niagara ; and thence along by the eastern and south eastern bank of Lake Erie, following the said bank until the same shall be intersected by the northern boundary granted by the charter of the province of Pennsylvania, in case the same shall be so intersected; and from thence along the said northern and western boundaries of the said province until the said western boundary shall strike the Ohio But in case the said bank of the said lake shall not be found to be so intersected, then following the said bank until it shall arrive at that point of the said bank which shall be nearest to the north-western angle of the said province of Pennsylvania, and thence, by a right line, to the said northwestern angle of the said province; and thence along the western boundary of the said province, until it strike the river Ohio; and along the bank of the said river westward to the banks of the river Mississippi and northward to the southern boundary of the territory granted to the Merchants Adventurers of England trading to Hudson's Bay; and also all such territories, islands, and countries which have, since the tenth of February 1763 been made part of the government of Newfoundland-be . . . annexed to and made part and parcel of the province of Quebec as created and established by the... Royal Proclamation of the 7th October 1763.' For an interesting discussion of the western boundaries, see D. Mills, A Report on the Boundaries of Ontario, pp. 1 ff. (Toronto, 1873). ... 2 Shortt and Doughty, op. cit., pp. 594 ff. of 1763. An assembly was shelved with no promises for the future. The council was increased from twelve members to not more than twenty-three and not less than seventeen, a new oath widening the choice of members. The only organic change was made in differentiating the executive and legislative functions of the council. Carleton was instructed that any five of the said council shall constitute a board of council for transacting all business in which their advice and consent may be requisite, acts of legislation only excepted'. He interpreted this order as justifying him in creating a kind of inner circle or 'privy council' as he called it, to whom he entrusted all administrative work to the exclusion of the other members. The chief justice, Peter Livius, challenged the arrangement and protested that the instruction was permissive, and that every member had a right to a summons whenever the council sat. A snub and dismissal were the governor's answer to the strict legalist.2 Livius appealed to the British government, which decided in 1779 in his favour.3 The decision forced the hand of Carleton's successor, Haldimand, who had continued the practice. In spite of the fact that he had been ordered to desist, he raised the question whether every measure of government ought to be exposed and laid open to the mixture of people which compose our council'. His purity of intention did not prevent him from receiving a severe rebuke and further peremptory orders." The executive or privy council disappeared from history. In fact the distinction between the executive and legislative functions of the council remained, for while only five members were necessary for executive business, the presence of half the members was necessary for legislation. The legislative powers, 1 Ibid., p. 702. 2 For the history and documents of this and other disputes see William Smith, The Struggle over the Laws of Canada, 1763-1783' (Canadian Historical Review, vol. i, pp. 167 ff.). * Shortt and Doughty, op. cit., pp. 698 ff. 4 Ibid., pp. 704 ff. 5 Haldimand to Germain, September 14, 1779, State Papers, Q. 16. 2, (Canadian Archives). 6 Shortt and Doughty, op. cit., p. 724. |