[36] See Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-91 (Shortt and Doughty), pp. 37-72.
[37] The delay was probably due to the provisions of the fourth clause of the Treaty of Paris, by which eighteen months were to be allowed to the subjects of the French king in Canada, who wished to leave the country, to do so. The treaty was signed on February 10, 1763, and was ratified by England on February 21, 1763; the eighteen months were to run from the date of ratification, but civil government in Canada began on August 10, 1764, i.e. eighteen months from the date of the treaty itself.
[38] ‘The Canadians are to a man soldiers, and will naturally conceive that he who commands the troops should govern them.’ Murray to Halifax, October 15, 1764. Shortt and Doughty, p. 153.
[39] The words, ‘under our immediate government,’ did not connote what would now be called Crown colonies as opposed to self-governing colonies, but colonies which held under the Crown and not under proprietors.
[40] The Lords of Trade to Lord Egremont, June 8, 1763. Shortt and Doughty, p. 104.
[41] Part of the 4th Article of the Peace of Paris in 1763 ran as follows: ‘His Britannic Majesty, on his side, agrees to grant the liberty of the Catholic religion to the inhabitants of Canada; he will in consequence give the most precise and most effectual orders, that his new Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit.’
[42] The letter is printed in full in the fifth volume of Kingsford’s History of Canada, pp. 188-90.
[43] For these documents see Shortt and Doughty, pp. 153, &c.
[44] October 29, 1764. See Shortt and Doughty, p. 167.
[45] October, 1766: Shortt and Doughty, pp. 194-5.