45. Royal Arms of George II.
Thus the new French-speaking subjects in Canada were only returning in allegiance to the sovereignty of a king whose ancestors had been placed upon the English throne by their own Norman forefathers; upon whose royal arms (45) were displayed the three fleurs-de-lis as sign of his claim, through his ancestors, to the throne of France (14); upon whose crown was the motto in their own French language, "Dieu et Mon Droit,"[119] and who by the retention of old customs still gave his consent to the laws enacted in his British Parliament in the same old Norman phrase, "Le Roi le veult" ("The King wills it"), which had been used by his Norman forefathers.[120]
The French habitant felt how easy was the renewal of the old relationship, and accepted the change in the way so well expressed in his Canadian voyageur patois:
"An' dat was de way we feel, w'en de ole régime's no more, An' de new wan come, but don't change moche; w'y its jus' lak' it be before, Spikin' Francais lak' we alway do, an' de English dey mak' no fuss, An' our law de sam', wall, I don't know me, 'twas better mebbe for us."[121]
There now commenced in Canada an evolution of internal government of the people similar to that which had taken place in the old land of England, but under reversed conditions, beginning here with the incoming of English rule, while there it had commenced with the Norman conquest of England. An eminent French authority[122] has stated his belief that England owed her liberties to her having been conquered by the Normans, and to this we may add the statement of a no less important English author,[123] that "assuredly England was gainer by the conquest." As the advent of Norman rule to England had resulted in such privileges to the English people, so assuredly the cession of Quebec and the introduction of English government into Canada brought equal blessings to the descendants of those selfsame Normans.
The French Canadian found that under his new Union Jack his property was secure. Under the old régime the French Canadian had practically no voice in the government of his country. There was no system of elective municipal government, no freedom for public meetings, all the legislative and executive power, even to its extremest details, being centralized through the Governor and Intendant in the person of the King of France, who was two thousand miles away. Finding his religious faith untrammelled, his freedom unimpaired, his language preserved, the habitant soon settled down without objection to his new sovereignty.
In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Act known as the "Quebec Act," which granted an increased share of local government to the people of the great province comprising all Canada which was then set apart, and the greater portion of which is now within the present Dominion. This measure of self-government still further assured the French-descended Canadians of the protection of their liberties, so that when the English-descended colonists of the thirteen English state colonies to the south of them revolted from their British allegiance in 1775, French Canada stood firm by the British crown. The descendants of the Normans in Canada were true to the government which their forefathers had helped to create in England.
The march of events now brought an additional set of new subjects to the British Constitution as it had then been established in Canada.
The granting of separation to the thirteen United States, in 1783, was followed by the immigration to Canada of those loyal souls whose hearts revolted at the action of their old colonies in taking down the Union Jack, and who refused to separate themselves from the United Empire, in whose ultimate justice they had unwavering faith.