Studies in American History 
223 
system of land holding ^‘as hath been practiced heretofore 
antecedent to the Conquest”/® This marked a beginning in the 
change of policy as announced in 1763, but the complete re- 
versal did not come until the Quebec Act of 1774. 
Meanwhile, the British ministry was giving serious thought 
to the matter of boundaries for the province of Quebec, 
particularly with respect to the Illinois Country. ‘There is 
no longer any Hope of perfecting that plan of Policy in respect 
to the interior of the Country, which was in contemplation 
when the Proclamation of 1763 was issued”, Dartmouth 
wrote to Cramahe in December, 1773, adding that “many 
Circumstances with regard to the Inhabitancy of parts of that 
Country were then unknown, and there are a Variety of other 
Considerations that do, at least in my judgment, induce a 
doubt both of the Justice and Propriety of restraining the 
Colony to the narrow Limits prescribed in that Proclama- 
tion”.^^ Nothing having been done to grant an assembly, 
the English inhabitants again petitioned, in November, 1773, 
that this part of the Proclamation of 1763 be put into effect.^*' 
This action was caused, so Cramahe wrote to Dartmouth, by 
a rumor that Parliament intended to tax the colony."^ 
It is not necessary here to go into the full history of the 
Quebec Act, but we have probably missed part of the truth 
regarding this important measure because of our failure to 
give full consideration to the Canadian angle of the problem. 
For years it was generally believed in the United States, as 
the colonists believed at the time, that the Quebec Act was 
merely one of the Coercive Acts of 1774 intended to force 
the colonies into submission. It is now recognized that this 
view was erroneous, at least to the extent that was formerly 
believed. Professor Alvord has shown that the Mississippi 
Valley was a large factor in the formulation of the policy 
embodied in the Quebec Act, and his views are now generally 
accepted. It is doubtful, however, whether we have given 
adequate consideration to the situation in Canada at that 
^^Ihid., I. 423. 
I, 485, 486. 
I. 493-497. 
“His majesty’s old subjects in this Province, tho’ collected from all Parts of flis 
extensive Dominions, have in General, at least such as intend remaining in the Country, 
adopted American Ideas in regard to Taxation, and a Report, transmitted from one 
of their Correspondents in Britain, that a Duty upon Spirits was intended to be raised 
here by Aiithority of Parliament, was a principal Cause of setting them upon petitioning 
for an Assembly, . . Ibid., I, 503, 504. 
