Canada under British Rule by Sir John George Bourinot (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📕

besieged Detroit when he failed to capture it by a trick. Niagara was never attacked, and Detroit itself was successfully defended by Major Gladwin, a fearless soldier; but all the other forts and posts very soon fell into the hands of the Indians, who massacred the garrisons in several places. They also ravaged the border settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and carried off a number of women and children to their wigwams. Fort Pitt at the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers--the site of the present city of Pittsburg--was in serious peril for a time, until Colonel Bouquet, a brave and skilful officer, won a signal victory over the Indians, who fled in dismay to their forest fastnesses. Pontiac failed to capture Detroit, and Bouquet followed up his first success by a direct march into the country of the Shawnees, Mingoes and Delawares, and forced them to agree to stern conditions of peace on the banks of the Muskingum. The power of the western Indians was broken for the time, and the British in 1765 took possession of the French forts of Chartres and Vincennes, when the _fleur-de-lys_ disappeared for ever from the valley of the Mississippi. The French settlers on the Illinois and the Mississippi preferred to remain under British rule rather than cross the great river and become subjects of Spain, to whom Western Louisiana had been ceded by France. From this time forward France ceased to be an influential factor in the affairs of Canada or New France, and the Indian tribes recognized the fact that they could no longer expect any favour or aid from their old ally. They therefore transferred their friendship to England, whose power they had felt in the Ohio valley, and whose policy was now framed with a special regard to their just treatment.

This Indian war was still in progress when King George III issued his proclamation for the temporary government of his new dependencies in North America. As a matter of fact, though the proclamation was issued in England on the 7th October, 1763, it did not reach Canada and come into effect until the 10th August, 1764. The four governments of Quebec, Grenada, East Florida, and West Florida were established in the territories ceded by France and Spain. The eastern limit of the province of Quebec did not extend beyond St. John's River at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, nearly opposite to Anticosti, while that island itself and the Labrador country, east of the St. John's as far as the Straits of Hudson, were placed under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland. The islands of Cape Breton and St. John, now Prince Edward, became subject to the Government of Nova Scotia, which then included the present province of New Brunswick. The northern limit of the province did not extend beyond the territory known as Rupert's Land under the charter given to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670, while the western boundary was drawn obliquely from Lake Nipissing as far as Lake St. Francis on the St. Lawrence; the southern boundary then followed line 45° across the upper part of Lake Champlain, whence it passed along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence from those that flow into the sea--an absurdly defined boundary since it gave to Canada as far as Cape Rosier on the Gaspé peninsula a territory only a few miles wide. No provision whatever was made in the proclamation for the government of the country west of the Appalachian range, which was claimed by Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other colonies under the indefinite terms of their original charters, which practically gave them no western limits. Consequently the proclamation was regarded with much disfavour by the English colonists on the Atlantic coast. No provision was even made for the great territory which extended beyond Nipissing as far as the Mississippi and included the basin of the great lakes. It is easy to form the conclusion that the intention of the British government was to restrain the ambition of the old English colonies east of the Appalachian range, and to divide the immense territory to their north-west at some future and convenient time into several distinct and independent governments. No doubt the British government also found it expedient for the time being to keep the control of the fur-trade so far as possible in its own hands, and in order to achieve this object it was necessary in the first place to conciliate the Indian tribes, and not allow them to come in any way under the jurisdiction of the chartered colonies. The proclamation itself, in fact, laid down entirely new, and certainly equitable, methods of dealing with the Indians within the limits of British sovereignty. The governors of the old colonies were expressly forbidden to grant authority to survey lands beyond the settled territorial limits of their respective governments. No person was allowed to purchase land directly from the Indians. The government itself thenceforth could alone give a legal title to Indian lands, which must, in the first place, be secured by treaty with the tribes that claimed to own them. This was the beginning of that honest policy which has distinguished the relations of England and Canada with the Indian nations for over a hundred years, and which has obtained for the present Dominion the confidence and friendship of the many thousand Indians, who roamed for many centuries in Rupert's Land and in the Indian Territories where the Hudson's Bay Company long enjoyed exclusive privileges of trade.

The language of the proclamation with respect to the government of the province of Quebec was extremely unsatisfactory. It was ordered that so soon as the state and circumstances of the colony admitted, the governor-general could with the advice and consent of the members of the council summon a general assembly, "in such manner and form as is used and directed in those colonies and provinces in America which are under our immediate government." Laws could be made by the governor, council, and representatives of the people for the good government of the colony, "as near as may be agreeable to the laws of England, and under such regulations and restrictions as are used in other colonies." Until such an assembly could be called, the governor could with the advice of his council constitute courts for the trial and determination of all civil and criminal cases, "according to law and equity, and as near as may be agreeable to the laws of England," with liberty to appeal, in all civil cases, to the privy council of England. General Murray, who had been in the province since the battle on the Plains of Abraham, was appointed to administer the government. Any persons elected to serve in an assembly were required, by his commission and instructions, before they could sit and vote, to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation, the adoration of the Virgin, and the Sacrifice of the Mass.

This proclamation--in reality a mere temporary expedient to give time for considering the whole state of the colony--was calculated to do infinite harm, since its principal importance lay in the fact that it attempted to establish English civil as well as criminal law, and at the same time required oaths which effectively prevented the French Canadians from serving in the very assembly which it professed a desire on the part of the king to establish. The English-speaking or Protestant people in the colony did not number in 1764 more than three hundred persons, of little or no standing, and it was impossible to place all power in their hands and to ignore nearly seventy thousand French Canadian Roman Catholics. Happily the governor, General Murray, was not only an able soldier, as his defence of Quebec against Lévis had proved, but also a man of statesmanlike ideas, animated by a high sense of duty and a sincere desire to do justice to the foreign people committed to his care. He refused to lend himself to the designs of the insignificant British minority, chiefly from the New England colonies, or to be guided by their advice in carrying on his government. His difficulties were lessened by the fact that the French had no conception of representative institutions in the English sense, and were quite content with any system of government that left them their language, religion, and civil law without interference. The stipulations of the capitulations of 1759-1760, and of the treaty of Paris, with respect to the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, were always observed in a spirit of great fairness: and in 1766 Monseigneur Briand was chosen, with the governor's approval, Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec. He was consecrated at Paris after his election by the chapter of Quebec, and it does not appear that his recognition ever became the subject of parliamentary discussion. This policy did much to reconcile the French Canadians to their new rulers, and to make them believe that eventually they would receive full consideration in other essential respects.

For ten years the government of Canada was in a very unsatisfactory condition, while the British ministry was all the while worried with the condition of things in the old colonies, then in a revolutionary ferment. The Protestant minority continued to clamour for an assembly, and a mixed system of French and English law, in case it was not possible to establish the latter in its entirety. Attorney-General Masères, an able lawyer and constitutional writer, was in favour of a mixed system, but his views were notably influenced by his strong prejudices against Roman Catholics. The administration of the law was extremely confused until 1774, not only on account of the ignorance and incapacity of the men first sent out from England to preside over the courts, but also as a consequence of the steady determination of the majority of French Canadians to ignore laws to which they had naturally an insuperable objection. In fact, the condition of things became practically chaotic. It might have been much worse had not General Murray, at first, and Sir Guy Carleton, at a later time, endeavoured, so far as lay in their power, to mitigate the hardships to which the people were subject by being forced to observe laws of which they were entirely ignorant.

At this time the governor-general was advised by an executive council, composed of officials and some other persons chosen from the small Protestant minority of the province. Only one French Canadian appears to have been ever admitted to this executive body. The English residents ignored the French as far as possible, and made the most unwarrantable claims to rule the whole province.

A close study of official documents from 1764 until 1774 goes to show that all this while the British government was influenced by an anxious desire to show every justice to French Canada, and to adopt a system of government most conducive to its best interests In 1767 Lord Shelburne wrote to Sir Guy Carleton that "the improvement of the civil constitution of the province was under their most serious consideration." They were desirous of obtaining all information "which can tend to elucidate how far it is practicable and expedient to blend the English with the French laws, in order to form such a system as shall be at once equitable and convenient for His Majesty's old and new subjects." From time to time the points at issue were referred to the law officers of the crown for their opinion, so anxious was the government to come to a just conclusion. Attorney-General Yorke and Solicitor-General De Grey in 1766 severely condemned any system that would permanently "impose new, unnecessary and arbitrary rules (especially as to the titles of land, and the mode of descent, alienation and settlement), which would tend to confound and subvert rights instead of supporting them." In 1772 and 1773 Attorney-General