are not good or bad in the abstract, but that their goodness or badness depends upon, and can only be judged by, the circumstances in which they are found. A so-called popular Assembly in 1774 would either have supplied an exaggerated edition of the state of things which came about after more than twenty years' apprenticeship in the art of government, or else it would have meant the dominance of a narrow, Protestant minority, as hostile to the real interests of their fellow subjects as they were prejudiced against the British Government. Upon another ground, however, the provisions of the Act were open to serious criticism. In spite of the protest of Lord Hillsborough, who took up the same line. which he had successfully adopted when President of the Board of Trade, the British Ministry determined to include within the limits of Quebec the whole country to the westward. The original intention had been to place the whole western country under one general control and government by Act of Parliament; but nothing had been done in this direction. It was affirmed that the trade and prosperity of Quebec had suffered from the separation of the upper Indian trading-posts, which were a survival of the French régime, of Lake Champlain and the coast of Labrador from Canada. American West In the Quebec Act the whole derelict country to the west was included placed under the government of Quebec with the avowed in Quebec. purpose of excluding all further settlement there, and of establishing uniform regulations for the Indian trade. Under the Proclamation of 1763 an honest attempt had been made to safeguard the interests of the Indians. Stricter regulations were made to secure to them their reserves. Not only was settlement therein strictly forbidden, but all persons who had, wilfully or inadvertently, seated themselves in such reserves were required forthwith to depart. The prohibited country included all lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fell into the Atlantic Ocean, from the west or north-west. No purchase of lands from Indians would be

recognized unless made by the provincial Governor himself at a public assembly of the Indians. The terms of the Proclamation only carried out undertakings which had been made with the Indians by the Treaty of Easton in 1758, under which Great Britain engaged that no settlements should be made in the lands beyond the Alleghany Mountains. On moral and legal grounds, then, the policy might be defended, but it was one impossible to enforce. Already there was beginning that natural expansion which in time was to people the continent as far as the Pacific. The decision to deprive the colonies of their natural hinterlands and to confine them within definite boundaries called forth a torrent of indignation. The boundary of Quebec, as defined by the Act, ran along New the eastern and south-eastern bank of Lake Erie. It followed boundary of Quebec. this bank to a point where it should be intersected by the northern boundary granted by the Charter of Pennsylvania. From thence it followed this northern and north-western boundary till it struck the river Ohio. In case such intersection was found not to take place, then the boundary followed the bank already mentioned till it arrived at the point which should be nearest to the north-west angle of the province of Pennsylvania. Having reached this point the boundary ran by a direct line to this angle, and thence along the western boundary of Pennsylvania till it struck the Ohio. Thence it ran along the bank of the Ohio westward to the Mississippi, and northward to the southern boundary of the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company. Labrador was at the same time reunited to Canada. The mother-country had poured forth blood and treasure in the winning of the new territory, and so far as the Indian war of Pontiac (1763-5) was concerned, the co-operation of the colonists had been of little value. A new English province might have been carved out in the west without giving much ground for moral objection, though the practical difficulties in the way would almost certainly have proved insuperable. The attempt,

Character of British officials.

however, to close the natural expansion ground of the old colonies by attaching it to a province, which was both French and Roman Catholic, was practically just as hopeless, while on sentimental grounds it was much more objectionable.

Moreover the Government of Quebec had enough to do in minding its own business. Painstaking and deliberate as had been upon the whole the action of the British home Government, it was not sufficiently careful in choosing the instruments of authority. Murray complained bitterly to Shelburne, in August, 1766, of the character of the officials sent out. According to him, the judge pitched upon to conciliate the minds of seventy-five thousand foreigners to the laws and government of Great Britain had just emerged from a debtors' prison. He was entirely ignorant of the civil law and of the French language. Important offices were freely granted to men of influence in England, who let them out to the best bidders, regardless of the fact whether or not they knew a word of French. As no salary was annexed to these offices their value depended on fees, the amount of which was regulated by those prevailing in the richest colonies. It would certainly seem that grave abuses in the administration of the law arose from the conduct of the English magistrates. It had become the practice for blank forms signed by magistrates to be placed in the hands of bailiffs to be filled up as occasion might require. The Bench was largely made up of men who had failed in business and who repaired their broken fortunes at the expense of the people. To remedy this grievance Carleton enacted an ordinance in 1770 which took away the power of the magistrates in cases affecting property. Suits for small sums were from this time heard in the Court of Common Pleas, and an independent Court was set on foot at Montreal. This measure was greatly resented by those whom Carleton described as 'cantonning upon the country and riding the people with despotic sway'. These men turned to their own profit the fines which they imposed, and in a

to British

manner looked upon themselves as the legislators of the province. Again and again Carleton warned the home Carleton's Government of the perilous nature of the situation. Why, he warnings asked bitterly, in November, 1767, should the French seigniors Governbe 'active in the defence of a people that has deprived them ment. of their honours, privileges, profits, and laws, and in their stead have introduced much expense, chichanery and confusion, with a deluge of new laws unknown and unpublished'. 'We have done nothing,' he wrote in the following year, 'to gain one man in the province by making it his private interest to remain the King's subject.' The Secretary of State recognized both the propriety and necessity of extending to that brave and faithful people a reasonable participation in those establishments which are to form the basis of the future government of Quebec', but English prejudice forbade that the most practical of Carleton's suggestions should be followed and commissions in the army be given to the French Canadians. The Quebec Act remedied certain religious and legal grievances, but it by no means supplied a solution to all the problems of government.

AUTHORITIES

The State Papers between 1761 and 1790 are calendared in Brymners' Canadian Report on the Canadian Archives, 1889. Archives.

Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 175991, edited by A. Shortt and A. G. Doughty, the Dominion Archivist, 1907, form an invaluable collection of historical material admirably edited. Murray's Report of August 20, 1766, is set out in Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. v, p. 188.

The best authority on the period of military rule is Règne militaire au Canada... du 8 septembre 1760 au 10 août 1764. Mémoire de la Société historique du Montréal, Montreal, 1872.

On the views of the English minority consult the works of F. Maseres. Among them are:

Account of the Proceedings of the British and other Protestant Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec . . . in order to obtain a House of Assembly. London, 1775.