One of General Murray's first acts as governor is to convey gentle hint to the Abbé Le Loutre, now released from prison and come back to Canada, that his absence will be appreciated by the government. Within a few years there are five hundred English residents in Montreal and Quebec; and now trouble begins for the government,—that wrangle between English and French, between Protestant and Catholic, which is to go on for a hundred years and retard Canada's progress by a century.
NORTH AMERICA AT THE CLOSE OF THE FRENCH WARS, 1763
Being British-born subjects, the few hundred demand that the Governor call an assembly,—an elective assembly; but by the laws of England, Roman Catholics must abjure their religion before they can take office, and by the Treaty of Paris the Catholics of Canada have been guaranteed the freedom of their religion. To grant an elective assembly now would mean that the representatives of the five hundred English traders would rule over 70,000 French. When accusing the French Catholics of Quebec of remaining a solidarity so that they may wield the balance of power, it is well to remember how and when the quarrel began. Murray sides with the French and stands like a rock for their right. He will have no elective assembly under present conditions; and he puts summary stop to the business English magistrates and English bailiffs have hatched against the rights of the habitant,—of seizing lands for debt at a time when money is scarce, summoning the debtor simultaneously to two different courts, then charging such outrageous fees that the debtor's land is sold for the fees, to be bought in by the rascal ring who have arranged the plot. Ordinances are still proclaimed in primitive fashion by the crier going through the streets shouting the laws to beat of drum; but as the crier shouts in English, the habitants know no more of the laws than if he shouted in Greek.
As Murray opposes the clamor of the English minority, the English petition the home government for Murray's recall. In the light of the fact that there were no schools at all in Canada except the Catholic seminaries, and that of the five hundred English residents only two hundred had permanent homes in Montreal and Quebec, it is rather instructive to read as one of the grievances of the English minority "that the only teachers in Canada were Catholics."
The governor-generalship is offered to Chatham, the great statesman, at 5000 pounds a year. Chatham refusing the position, there comes in 1768 as governor, at 1200 pounds a year, Sir Guy Carleton, fellow-soldier and friend of Wolfe in the great war, who follows in Murray's footsteps, stands like a rock for the rights of the French, orders debtors released from jail, fees reduced, and a stoppage of forced land sales. Bitter is the disappointment to the land jobbers, who had looked for a partisan in Carleton; doubly bitter, for Carleton goes one better than Murray. For years the French government had issued paper money in Quebec. After the conquest seventeen millions of these worthless government promissory notes were outstanding in the hands of the habitants. Knowing that the paper money is to be redeemed by the English government, English jobbers are now busy buying up the paper among the poor French at fifteen cents on the dollar. Carleton sends the town crier from parish to parish, warning the habitants to hold their money and register the amounts with the magistrates till the whole matter can be arranged between England and France.
The first newspaper is established now in Quebec, The Quebec Gazette, printed in both English and French. Also the first trouble now arises from having ceded France the two tiny islands south of Newfoundland, St. Pierre and Miquelon. By English navigation laws, all trade must be in English ships. Good! The smugglers slip into St. Pierre with a cargo. By night a ship with a white sail slips out of St. Pierre with that cargo. At Gaspé the sail of that ship is red; at Saguenay it is yellow; at Quebec it is perhaps brown. Ostensibly the ship is a fishing smack, but it leaves other cargo than fish at the habitant hamlets of the St. Lawrence; and the smuggling from St. Pierre that began in Carleton's time is continued to-day in the very same way.
