In 1663 Louis N1V. dissolved the Company of New Fraud(' and placed Canada under the direct control of the Crown. though for ten years thereafter (1661-74) a new corporation, the 'Company of the West,' a virtual monopoly over the trade of the colony. I. the royal Governnient, which lasted until 1760, the affairs of New. France were administered by a Governor, an Intendant. and a Superior Council. all appointed by the Crown, the Gov ernor being empowered to command the troops, conduct negotiations with fw.eign colonies and Indian tribes, and supervise all matters of ad ministrative routine; the Intendant to preside at the Connell, exercise independent legislative and judicial power, and supervise the expendi ture of all public moneys, besides acting virtually as a spy on the Governor; and the Supreme Council, composed of the Governor, the In tendant, the Bishop, and five, later seven, and still later thirteen. councilors, to issue decrees for the government of the colony in civil and fiscal affairs, and to sit in judgment on va rious civil and criminal causes. The distinctive features of the government of Canada through out the French regime were absolutism and pa ternalism. the individual settler being robbed of all initiative and forced to look for every thing to the general Government, which habit ually intervened in the most trivial affairs of every-day life. During the period of royal con trol, the celebrated feudal system of Canada, first established by Richelieu, and based, with important modifications, upon the system which had obtained in ancient France, took definite form. Large grants, called seignories, were made to men of rank or prominence, known as seigneurs, who held, in many eases directly from the Crown, by the 'tenure of faith and homage,' and who, in turn, made smaller grants to the habitants or censitaires, whose tenure rested upon their payment of annual rentals in money or produce, and in some cases upon their renderitig to their over-lords certain feudal ser vices, such, for instance, as the co•ree. The set tlements, called ciites, were almost uniformly made along streams, the houses being built in long lines, instead of being arranged around a common centre, as was the ease in many of the New England villages—each habitant receiv ing a narrow strip of land, fronting on a river or creek and extending for a considerable dis tance to the rear. The system was not inter fered with at the time of the English conquest in 1760. and survived in Lower Canada (Quebec) until 1854, when it was finally abolished.
With the English Colonists to the south the in habitants of New France came into conflict during the last part of the Seventeenth Century. Such events as the destruction of the French settle ment at Port Royal by Argall in 1613. or the capture and occupation of Quebec by David Kirke in 1629-32 may be regarded as sporadic: but with the outbreak of the first of the so-called French and Indian wars in 1689, the long contest be tween the French and English for supremacy in North America was initiated. (See KING WIL LIAM'S WAR; ANNE'S WAR; KING GEORGE'S WAR; FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.) Of these wars, the first two especially, 1689-07 and 1702-13. may be differentiated from the last as being essentially the fighting out of European quarrels on American soil. On the part of the French. the conflict took the form of sudden raids, with the help of their Indian allies, on the fron tier settlements of New York and New- England.
Though no important victory was gained on either side, the English nevertheless acquired by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) Acadia, Newfound land, and the Hudson Bay Territory. Thirty five years of peace followed, marked by rapid development both among the French and the Eng lish. The tide of English colonization, breaking through the passes of the Alleghenies. was checked by the French, who had made themselves masters of the great rivers of the west. The war which broke out in 1754 was essentially American. and though it later merged into the greater struggle of the Seven Years' War, the stake between Eng land and France was the mastery in America. In the French and Indian War, Canada experienced both the advantages and disadvantages of the ab solute system of government under which it lived. Against the armies of Great Britain, weakened by incapacity on the part of their commanders and constant friction between British officers and the Colonials, it presented a force of trained fight ers, under officers, for the most part, acquainted with the nature of the country, and acting all under the direction of one supreme will. This would account for the ill success of the English during the first part of the war. When it Caine, however, to a test of endurance between the com batants, Canada, with its sparse population of fur traders and forest rangers, could never hope to hold out against the English Colonists, if, as was the fact, it was forced to depend for help on distant France, with the British holding the mastery of the seas. The capture of Quebec by Wolfe in September. 1759, practically ended the war. By the Treaty of Paris (q.v.) in 1763, Canada. together with all the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River, claimed by France, was ceded to Great Britain.
Canada was under a military government from 1760 to 1764, and under a sort of provis ional government, organized in pursuance of a proclamation by George I 11., from 1764 to 1774, when the British Parliament passed an im portant measure known as 'The Quebec Act' (q.v.). which extended the province to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, provided that Rcman Catholics should not be interfered with in their religion. intrusted the administration of affairs to a Governor and a Legislative Council ap pointed by the Crown, and formally recognized the old civil laws and civil institutions of French Canada, though the English criminal laws were to be in force throughout the prov ince. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress attempted to secure the active alliance of Canada, and to that end sent a commission, made up of Franklin, Chase, Charles Carroll, and John Carroll. to Quebec; but the province remained loyal throughout, and at the close of the war its population was augmented Dented by the immigration from the United States of between 30,000 and 40.000 Loyalists, whose advent. says the Ca nadian historian Bourinot, "was the saving of British interests in the great region which England still happily retained in North Ameri ca." It was these immigrants who founded New Brunswick and Upper Canada (Ontario). and their descendants have continued to the present day to constitute perhaps the most important and influential element in the population of Canada.