QUEBEC BILL. 360 
©f 1774. By'this bill it was enacted, that all 
persons in the country should be entitled to hold 
their lands or possessions in the same manner 
as before the conquest, according to the laws 
and usages then existing in Canada ; and that 
all controversies relative to property or civil 
rights should also be determined by the same 
laws and usages. These old laws and usages* 
however, were not to extend to the lands which 
might thereafter be granted by his Britannic 
Majesty in free and common socage : here 
English law s were to be in full force ; so that 
the * English inhabitants, who have settled for 
the most part on new lands, are not subject to 
the controul of these old French laws, that 
were existing in Canada when the country was 
conquered; except a dispute concerning pro- 
.perty or civil rights should arise between any 
of them and the French inhabitants, in which 
case the matter is to be determined by the 
French laws. Every friend to civil liberty 
would wish to see these laws abolished, for they 
w eigh very unequally in favour of the rich and 
of the poor; but as long as the French inha¬ 
bitants remain so wedded as they are at pre¬ 
sent to old customs, and so very ignorant, there 
* l must observe here once for all, that by English inhabi¬ 
tants I mean all those whose native language is English, in 
contradistinction to the Canadians of French extraction, who 
universally speak the French language, and no other. 
& 
VOL. I, 
£ B 
