— 214, — 



stand fully the position of Canadian affairs, in 1764, it 

 may not be out of place to remember that two antago- 

 nistic parties existed ; first, the Trench, whose laws, 

 language, religion, though placed under the aegis of a 

 solemn treaty, were extremely distasteful to the bureau- 

 cracy and new settlers : those who styled themselves, 

 the the King's old subjects, the conquerors, who sought 

 in the new colony homes and affluence for their Pro- 

 testant sons and daughters and for themselves, honors 

 and position. The French colonists were known as the 

 King's new subjects; they constituted the majority, 

 the immense majority. The other party much less 

 numerous, occupied all the avenues to office, the 

 King's tried, loyal old subjects. The anglifi cation of the 

 French element, was the studied scheme of the poli- 

 ticians of the day. Various were the plans suggested ; 

 some crude in the extreme, to kill off the French 

 nationality and make all Canada homogenous by the 

 introduction of the parliamentary, municipal and agra- 

 rian institutions of England. 



It did not seem to have struck these reformers that the 

 time to make Canada homogenous as to laws, language, 

 &c.,would have been when the victor dictated the articles 

 of the capitulation of Quebec, subsequently ratified by 

 that of Montreal and finally recognized in the treaty of 

 Versailles, of 10th February, 1763. 



Had Canada in 1759 been an English colony crushed 

 by the merceless heel of French soldiery, it is not 

 unlikely the French Monarch of the period would have 

 dealt with its laws, customs and nationality, in the 

 same manner Louis XIV, wrote to his Canadian agent, 

 de Courcelles to deal with the heretical inhabitants of 

 New York, in 1689 — if ever he had the chance of 

 doing so by conquest : disperse them. England, in 

 1759, had been generous to the vanquished ; but what- 

 ever may have been her motive, rights, immunities and 

 privileges had been granted by treaty to French Canada 

 — which she could neiver ignore, recall, nor withhold. 



