A history of Canada, 1763-1812

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

In the autumn of the year 1763, on the 7th of October, King George III issued a proclamation constituting ‘within the countries and islands, ceded and confirmed to us by the said treaty, four distinct and separate governments, styled and called by the names of Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada’. Of these four governments, the first alone requires special notice. The government of Grenada was in the West Indies, and the governments of East and West Florida, excluding a debatable strip of territory which was annexed to the State of Georgia, were co-extensive with the new province which had been acquired from Spain.

Boundaries of the government of Quebec.

The limits assigned by the proclamation to the government of Quebec were as follows: north of the St. Lawrence, the new province was ‘bounded on the Labrador coast by the river St. John, and from thence by a line drawn from the head of that river, through the Lake St. John, to the south end of the Lake Nipissim’. The river St. John flows into the St. Lawrence over against the western end of the island of Anticosti; Lake St. John is the lake out of which the Saguenay takes its course; Lake Nipissim or Nipissing is connected by French river with Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. The line in question, therefore, was drawn due south-west from Lake St. John parallel to the St. Lawrence.[1] From the southern end of Lake Nipissim the line, according to the terms of the proclamation, crossed the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain in 45 degrees of north latitude. In other words, it was drawn due south-east, to the west of and parallel to the Ottawa river, until it struck the St. Lawrence, where the 45th parallel of north latitude meets that river at the foot of the Long Sault Rapids. It then followed the 45th parallel eastward across the outlet of Lake Champlain, and subsequently, diverging to the north-east, was carried ‘along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the said river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea’. Further east it skirted ‘the north coast of the Baye des Chaleurs and the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosieres’, which last named cape is at the extreme end of the Gaspé peninsula. The line then again crossed the St. Lawrence by the western end of the island of Anticosti, and joined the river St. John.

Thus, south of the St. Lawrence, the boundary of the province of Quebec was, roughly speaking, much the same as it is at the present day. Its westernmost limit was also not far different, the Ottawa river being in the main the existing boundary between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. On the north and north-east, on the other hand, the government of Quebec in 1763 covered a smaller area than is now the case. ‘To the end that the open and free fishery of our subjects may be extended to and carried on upon the coast of Labrador and the adjacent islands,’ ran the terms of the proclamation, ‘we have thought fit, with the advice of our said Privy Council, to put all that coast from the river St. John’s to Hudson’s Straits, together with the islands of Anticosti and Madelaine, and all other smaller islands lying upon the said coast, under the care and inspection of our Governor of Newfoundland.’ To the government of Nova Scotia were annexed the conquered islands of St. Jean or St. John’s, now Prince Edward Island, and Isle Royale or Cape Breton, ‘with the lesser islands adjacent thereto.’

Encouragement of military and naval settlers.

It was greatly desired to encourage British settlement in North America, and special regard was had in this respect to the soldiers and sailors who in North American lands and waters had deserved so well of their country. Accordingly the proclamation contained a special provision for grants of land, within the old and the new colonies alike, to retired officers of the army who had served in North America during the late war; to private soldiers who had been disbanded in and were actually living in North America; and to retired officers of the navy who had served in North America ‘at the times of the reduction of Louisbourg and Quebec’. It was thought also by the Lords of Trade that confidence and encouragement would be given to intending settlers, if at the outset they were publicly notified of the form of government under which they would live. Provision for a legislature and for the administration of justice. Hence the proclamation provided, as regards the new colonies, ‘that so soon as the state and circumstances of the said colonies will admit thereof,’ the governors ‘shall, with the advice and consent of the members of our Council, summon and call General Assemblies within the said governments respectively, in such manner and form as is used and directed in those colonies and provinces in America which are under our immediate government’. The governors, councils, and representatives of the people, when duly constituted, were empowered to make laws for the public peace, welfare, and good government of the colonies, provided that such laws should be ‘as near as may be agreeable to the laws of England, and under such regulations and restrictions as are used in other colonies.’ Pending the constitution of the legislatures, the inhabitants and settlers were to enjoy the benefit of the laws of England, and the governors were empowered, with the advice of their councils, to establish courts of justice, to hear and decide civil and criminal cases alike, in accordance as far as possible with the laws of England, a right of appeal being given in civil cases to the Privy Council in England. It was not stated in the proclamation, but it was embodied in the governors’ instructions, that until General Assemblies could be constituted, the governors, with the advice of their councils, were to make rules and regulations for peace, order, and good government, all matters being reserved ‘that shall any ways tend to affect the life, limb, or liberty of the subject, or to the imposing any duties or taxes’.

The Western territories.

In June, 1762, James Murray, then military governor of the district of Quebec, and subsequently the first civil governor of the province, wrote that it was impossible to ascertain exactly what part of North America the French styled Canada. In the previous March General Gage, then military governor of Montreal, had written that he could not discover ‘that the limits betwixt Louisiana and Canada were distinctly described, so as to be publicly known’, but that from the trade which Canadians had carried on under the authority of their governors, he judged ‘not only the lakes, which are indisputable, but the whole course of the Mississippi from its heads to its junction with the Illinois, to have been comprehended by the French in the government of Canada’. In June, 1763, the Lords of Trade, when in obedience to the Royal commands they were considering the terms and the scope of the coming proclamation, reported that ‘Canada, as possessed and claimed by the French, consisted of an immense tract of country including as well the whole lands to the westward indefinitely which was the subject of their Indian trade, as all that country from the southern bank of the river St. Lawrence, where they carried on their encroachments’.

After the Peace of Paris had been signed, the King, through Lord Egremont, who had succeeded Chatham as Secretary of State for the southern department, referred the whole subject of his new colonial possessions to the Lords of Trade. In doing so he called special attention to the necessity of keeping peace among the North American Indians—a subject which was shortly to be illustrated by Pontiac’s war—and to this end he laid stress upon the desirability of protecting their persons, their property, and their privileges, and ‘most cautiously guarding against any invasion or occupation of their hunting lands, the possession of which is to be acquired by fair purchase only’. The Lords of Trade recommended adoption of ‘the general proposition of leaving a large tract of country round the Great Lakes as an Indian country, open to trade, but not to grants and settlements; the limits of such territory will be sufficiently ascertained by the bounds to be given to the governors of Canada and Florida on the north and south, and the Mississippi on the west; and by the strict directions to be given to Your Majesty’s several governors of your ancient colonies for preventing their making any new grants of lands beyond certain fixed limits to be laid down in the instructions for that purpose’. Egremont answered that the King demurred to leaving so large a tract of land without a civil jurisdiction and open, as being derelict, to possible foreign intrusion; and that, in His opinion, the commission of the Governor of Canada should include ‘all the lakes, viz. Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior’, and ‘all the country as far north and west as the limits of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Mississippi’. At the same time He cordially concurred in not permitting grants of lands or settlements in these regions, which should be ‘for the present left unsettled, for the Indian tribes to hunt in, but open to a free trade for all the colonies’. The Lords of Trade were not convinced. They deprecated annexing this western territory to any colony, and particularly to Canada, on three grounds: The first was that annexation to Canada might imply that the British title to these lands was the result of the late treaty and of the cession of Canada, whereas it rested on antecedent rights, and it was important not to let the Indians form a wrong impression on this head by being brought under the government of the old French province. The second ground was that, if the Indian territory was annexed to one particular province and subjected to its laws, that province would have an undue advantage over the other provinces or colonies in respect to the Indian trade, which it was the intention of the Crown to leave open as far as possible to all British subjects. The third objection to annexing the territory to Canada was that the laws of the province could not be enforced except by means of garrisons established at different posts throughout the area, which would necessitate either that the Governor of Canada should always be commander-in-chief of the forces in North America, or that there should be constant friction between the civil governor and the military commanders. This reasoning prevailed, and the lands which it was contemplated to reserve for the use of the Indians were not annexed to any particular colony or assigned to any one colonial government.

Provisions for the protection of the Indians.