Had there been no other factors in the politi cal life of the country than the government and the French Canadians, the first years of the new order would have been peaceful enough. It is true that the commission of Governor Mur ray (1763) was marked by ill-advised expres sions. For example, the members of such an assembly as might hereafter be convened by the governor and council ((shall, before their sitting, take the oaths mentioned in the act entitled An Act for the further security of his Majesty's person and government, and the succession of the Crown in the heirs of the late Princess Sophia, being Protestants," etc. In other words, every French Canadian who aspired to sit in the assembly of the colony must sub scribe a declaration against transubstantiation, the adoration of the Virgin and the sacrifice of the mass. Such language (borrowed from the laws of England) would have seemed offensive had political life become active in the colony, but as no assembly was convened till 1791 it remained shorn of practical significance. Real difficulty sprang less from the disaffection of the "new subjects') than from the presence in Canada of certain "old subjects,° that is to say, of the English who had come to Quebec and Montreal at the close of the war. Here was a fresh element in the population, small but active and bitterly opposed to the recognition of French institutions. Prior to the outbreak of the Revolution an influential pro portion of the English living in Canada were natives of the American colonies who had moved to the northern part of the British dominions with the design of enriching themselves through the fur-trade. Their antagonism to the French was prompted partly by race and religion but also by dislike of French law and contempt for the conservatism of French character. Their plea was that since the fate of war had given Canada to the English the country should be made in the fullest sense a possession. These "old subjects? but just arrived in the colony, would have uprooted French law, dis couraged the use of the French language, de stroyed or fettered the hierarchy, and inciden tally have made themselves a dominant class. At no time before the passage of the Quebec Act could they have formed more than a fiftieth part of the population, but, owing to the strength with which they raised the cry of the ruling race, they enjoyed a position of great promi nence. Unfortunately for the success of their program, they incurred the dislike of the local authorities by an extreme radicalism of utterance and demeanor. Carleton, in particu lar, discountenanced them and held them to be infected with the mutinous views which were becoming so increasingly prevalent in the Eng lish colonies.
Sir Guy Carleton, afterward Lord Dor chester, is the most striking figure in Cana dian history from the Conquest to the days of responsible government. The close friend and confidant of Wolfe, he began his carter as a soldier. Circumstances made .him an achniniso trator and he ended by reaching the full stature of a statesman. Those who approve the policy embodied in the Quebec Act will, of course, rank him higher than he will be ranked by those who deny the wisdom of that far-rea • measure, but regarding the quality of his min chin i the firmness of his temper and the justice o his intentions, opinion is undivided. After serv ing with distinction in the campaigns of 1759 and 1760 he returned to Canada as administra tor of the government in 1766. In 1769 he be came governor-in-chief ; and from this date mull his final surrender of office in 1796 he re mained among all Englishmen the leading au thority on Canadian affairs. The Quebec Act was the fruit of information and advice which he supplied; it was he who repelled Mont gomery's invasion, and the Constitutional Act of 1791 which gave the colony its first training in self-government was largely his work. Dur ing a formative period of 30 years his policy of generosity toward the defeated race was the policy of the British government. Murray, whose language reflects personal resentment, says of the "old "I report them to be in general the most immoral collection of men I ever knew? Carleton, though less severe in his strictures, formed a highly unfavorable opinion of them and expressed his preference 'or the French Canadians with perfect freedom. .A.txxe thug to his forecast, which in this respect has not been altogether justified, the valley of the Saint Lawrence was unlikely to be inhabited by any large number of Englishmen. Most of the English who were then resident in Montreal and Quebec had come in the train of the troops and would probably return with them. The
traders had not been successful and would soon disappear. To quote his own words, it remained that "barring a catastrophe too shocking to think of, this country must to the end of time be peopled by .the Canadian race? The Cana dians, he continues, "are not a migration of Britons, who brought with them the laws of England, but a populous and long-established colony? Thus believing that the French could never be supplanted he concluded that their customs, ecclesiastical and legal, should be re tained. A detailed statement regarding the Quebec Act will be found elsewhere (see the article THE QUEBEC Acr). Here it need only be said that its territorial provisions were ex tremely distasteful to the English colonies and that its concessions to the French Canadians have supplied a solid ground work for their loyalty to the British Crown. Whether Sir Etienne Tache was correct when he said, "The last gun that will be fired for British supremacy in America will be fired by a French Canadian, must be termed matter of conjecture; but the sentiment which prompted him to speak so fervently was gratitude for the Quebec Act. This measure provided an unobjectionable oath of allegiance, sanctioned the Roman Catholic religion in so far as it did not conflict with the King's supremacy, and ordained that "in all matters of controversy relating to property and civil rights, resort shall be had to the laws of Canada as the rule for the decision of the same? Hence English criminal law and French civil law were established side by side in the regions covered by the act. When Upper Canada was constituted in 1791 it received the common law of England unmodified and un limited, but French civil law still survives in the province of Quebec.
At the same moment when Great Britain was endeavoring to meet the wishes of her French subjects, the question of Canada was becoming an additional source of friction between the mother country and her older colonies in Amer ica. Not only did the English colonies dis approve a policy which heaped such favors upon the French, but some of them re sented the King's disposition of the re cently acquired territory to the west of the Alleghanies. In the royal proclama tion of 1763 nothing was said concerning the government of this valuable region, an omission which disappointed Virginia and other colonies ambitious of expansion. Worse still, the Quebec Act handed over the western coun try to Canada, shutting out the older colonies and rendering an immense area subject to the operation of French civil law. At any time such action would have provoked remonstrance ,• in 1774 it quickened the resentment which had been gathering force ever since the passage of the Stamp Act. How prominent Canada was in the eyes of the Continental Congress may be inferred from the decision, speedily formed, to gain control of it by force. The sequel was a severe blow to the Revolutionary cause. Mont gomery (see MONTGOMERY, RICHARD), advanc ing by Lake Champlain and the Richelieu, occu pied Montreal and nearly succeeded in captur ing Carleton, who was the head and front of the defense. Simultaneously Benedict Arnold (q.v.) made his way through the woods of Maine to the valley of the Chaudiere and de spite dreadful privations appeared before the walls of Quebec. On the arrival of Mont gomery from Montreal a siege was commenced, but the sufferings of the troops proved so in tolerable that it was decided to carry the town by assault. On 31 Dec. 1775, the two generals made a desperate attempt to force a passage through the streets of the Lower Town. Dur ing the fight which ensued Montgomery was killed and after a sharp encounter Carleton drove out the invaders with heavy loss. The war in Canada dragged on during the greater part of 1776 but before the close of that year the Americans had been repulsed at all points and the issue, so far as it affected Quebec, was decided. On the British side the hero of this campaign is undoubtedly Carleton, who main tained his position against heavy odds; but con sidered historically the attitude of the French Canadians is no less interesting. The clergy and the seigneurs used their influence actively on behalf of the British; the habitants remained neutral. It seems clear, however, that without the aid which he received from Canadian volun teers, Carleton would have been beaten, and it is also manifest that the French peasantry did not respond with any heartiness to the appeals of the Continental Congress.