32. THE QUEBEC ACT. From the capitulation of Montreal in 1760 down to the ratification of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 Can ada was without any form of civil government, the affairs of the colony being administered by the officer in command of the British armies of occupation. But with the conclusion of peace and the definite cession of the colony to the British Crown this. tentative arrangement came to an end and in the autumn of 1763 a royal proclamation decreed the establishment of a civil government in the newly-acquired colony, prom ising that as soon as circumstances would per mit representative assemblies would be con vened. In the meantime the laws of England were to be in force. In virtue of this arrange ment Gen. James Murray (q.v.) was appointed to the governorship of the colony and a council of eight members was nominated to assist him in the work of administration. For the time being, justice continued to be administered by the military courts at Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal, but in September 1764 a proclamation was issued by the governor-in-council establish ing a Court of King's Bench for the trial of all causes, both civil and criminal, agreeably to the laws of England which the royal proclamation of the preceding year had declared to be in force. At the same time a Court of Common Pleas was established for the trial of actions which had arisen before the publication of the proclamation of 1763 and in regard to which the old French law had to be applied.
The immediate result of this change was to inaugurate a regime of utter judicial chaos, for the new judges were completely at a loss to apply the principles of English common law to the causes which came before them, especially where questions of real property were cerned. Accordingly, the governor-in-council during the month of November 1764 issued a further proclamation declaring that °in all ac tions relative to the tenure of land or the rights of inheritance, the French laws and tisages be observed as the rule of decision.° But in all other civil cases and in all criminal cases the common law of England was to be applied. This change improved matters but slightly for the new English judges were slow to master the intricacies of French law and applied it very imperfectly where they endeavored to make it apply. To the application of the English criminal law the French inhabitants of the province made no great objection, although for the time being many of them failed to take kindly to the institution of trial by jury; but there was a widespread demand for the exten sion of French law to all civil causes. Com plaints were likewise made that the judicial officers of the colony were for the most part ignorant of the French language; that they were often dishonest and that the legal fees charged the inhabitants were exorbitant. For
all of these complaints there seems to have been considerable foundation and in fact the law officers of the Crown in England reported a recommendation that the French language should be restored in judicial proceedings and that the old French law should be extended to all civil cases.
Matters rested as they were until the ap pointment of Gen. Sir Guy Carleton (q.v.) to the post of governor in 1767. The new gov ernor was not long in grasping the situation and in deciding that the restoration of the whole fabric of French civil law would be advisable. To this end he had the coutume de Paris of the old regime carefully re-edited by several colonial jurists of acknowledged ability and the revised text at once became the acknowledged source of law in all cases of land tenure and inheritance. Carleton pressed his proposal on the home authorities and in 1770 went to England to urge its adoption. There he man aged to secure the appointment of a commission to examine into the merits of the whole matter and the report of this body, although it was not presented until the closing days of 1772, was on the whole in favor of the governor's recom mendation. In the meantime, however, there was a growing demand among the British inhab itants of the colony for the establishment of a representative assembly in accordance with the promise made in the proclamation of 1763. At meetings of the British inhabitants resolutions calling upon the home authorities to take steps in this direction were passed and forwarded to England. But to the adoption of such a step there was grave difficulty, namely, the decision of the question as to whether Roman Catholics would be permitted to sit in the new assembly. The disabilities of Roman Catholics had not been removed in England at this time and it was hardly to be expected that Parliament would extend to Roman Catholics in a colony privileges which it denied them at home. On the other hand, an assembly from which Roman Catholics were excluded would be very far from representative in a colony where nine tenths or more of the population professed that religion. This difficulty, together with the fact that the position assumed by the representative assemblies in the British colonies on the Atlan tic seaboard at this time was not calculated to inspire the home authorities with a favorable regard for popular colonial representation, seems to have determined the ministry in its decision that Canada, for the time being, should not be trusted with an assembly representing the people. On some other points, however, the home authorities evinced a desire to meet the wishes of the colonists.