Chapter XXIII: Section IV: relating to Canada was as follows

“His Most Christian Majesty renounces all pretensions which he
has heretofore formed or might have formed to Nova Scotia or
Acadia in all its parts, and guarantees the whole of it and with
all its dependencies to the King of Great Britain. Moreover
his most Christian Majesty accedes and guarantees to his said
Britannic Majesty in full right, Canada with all its dependencies
as well as the island of Cape Breton and all the other islands
and coasts in the Gulph and river of St. Lawrence and in general
everything that depends on the said countries, lands, islands
and coasts with the sovereignty, property, possessions and all
rights acquired by treaty or otherwise, which the Most Christian
King and the crown of France have had till now over the said
countries, lands, islands, places, coasts and their inhabitants,
so that the Most Christian King cedes and makes over the whole to
the said King and to the Crown of Great Britain and that in the
most ample manner and form, without restriction and without any
liberty to depart from the said cession and guarantee under any
pretense, or to disturb Great Britain in the possessions above
mentioned.

“His Britannic Majesty on his side agrees to grant the liberty of
the Catholick religion to the inhabitants of Canada; he will in
consequence give the most precise and most effectual orders that
his new Roman Catholick subjects may profess the worship of their
religion according to the rights of the Romish church as far as
the laws of Great Britain permit. His Britannic Majesty further
agrees that the French inhabitants or others who have been
subjects of the Most Christian King in Canada may retire with all
safety and freedom whenever they shall think proper and may sell
their estates provided it be to the subjects of His Britannic
Majesty, and bring away their effects as well as their persons
without being restrained in their emigration under any pretense
whatever except that of debts or of criminal prosecutions; the
term limited for this emigration shall be fixed to the space of
eighteen months to be computed from the day of the exchange of
the ratification of the present treaty.”

The definitive treaty of Paris of February 10, 1763, proclaimed by Governor Gage in Montreal on May 17th, was received with delight by the English merchants, for they looked forward eagerly for the civil government to be set up in which they, but a handful, hoped by the right of conquest to assume the high hand. They had long chafed under what they, more than the “Canadians,” chose to call military despotism. They had looked upon the amicable temporary participation of the Canadians in their own government, with eyes of envy. They were of the same metal as the British merchants of Quebec who, relying on their undoubted energy in developing the commercial interests of the country, and in their self-satisfaction, so aggrandized their own importance that they wished to rule solely, so that they early petitioned his Majesty for a representative assembly in this province as in all the other provinces of His Majesty. “There are,” they said, “a sufficient number of loyal and interested Protestants outside the military officers to form a legislative assembly, and the new subjects of His Majesty, if he should believe it proper, could be authorized to elect Protestants without having to take oath against their conscience.” (See constitutional documents, Doughty & Shortt.)

There were only about two hundred Protestants, and these not all educated or upright men, in the whole country at this time--in Quebec 144, in Montreal 56. Yet they desired to represent the whole people and to exclude the “new subjects” from every position of trust under the new civil government. At the time of Murray’s recall in 1766 they had reached the number of 450.

The Canadians were not prepared for the new turn of the tide. In consequence we shall see that between 1763 and 1774 the country was in an unsettled state, owing to the conflict inevitable between the two forces of the old and new régimes striving for recognition.

Under the military law the “new subjects” had been entrusted with a share in the government. The English rulers were officers and gentlemen who respected the claims of the Seigneurs as well as of the simple habitants, and moreover their religion was held in honour. They had been led to believe that this happy state would continue. Gage and Murray in their report to Egremont seem to hint how they were hoodwinked. “Canadians are very ignorant and extremely tenacious of their religion. Nothing can contribute to make them staunch subjects to His Majesty as the new government giving them every reason to imagine no alteration is to be attempted in that point.”

Thus when the “new subjects” came to understand that they were only to “profess the worship of their religion according to the rights of the Romish church _as far as the laws of Great Britain permit_,” and that that permission was to be interpreted along the lines of the Catholic civil disabilities in England, they felt that they were proscribed men who had been ensnared by roseate promises of a wise interpretation of British liberty to be extended to them as new subjects.

The situation was impossible and at once there began the inevitable struggle and the long series of accommodations that were eventually to culminate in the Quebec act of 1774, the Magna Charta of French Canadians. The significance of this act cannot be understood unless the religious proscription in the policy of the new government be understood. Hence the opposition among the Seigneurs in Montreal, their headquarters, was secretly fostered, which later alarmed Carleton so much, as we shall see. The French Canadian clergy and Seigneurs of Montreal looked upon the new change of government as an attempt to Anglicize their religion as well as their laws. And they were not far wrong. In a letter to Governor Murray, the secretary of state, Lord Egremont, wrote from Whitehall on August 13, 1763, acquainting him that the King had been graciously pleased to confer on him the civil government of Canada and making special reference to the qualification, “as far as the laws of Great Britain permit,” which laws, he explains, prohibit absolutely all Popish hierarchy in any of the dominions belonging to the Crown of Great Britain and can only admit of a toleration of the exercise of that religion; this matter was clearly understood in the negotiation of the exercise of that religion; the French ministers proposed to insert the words _comme ci-devant_ in order that the Romish religion should continue to be exercised in the same manner as under their government; and they did not give up their point until they were plainly told that it would be deceiving them to admit those words, for the king had not the power to tolerate that religion in any other manner than as far as the laws of Great Britain permit. “These laws must be your guide in any disputes that may arise on this subject.”

The intention was precisely to tolerate for a time the Romish religion and gradually to supplant it. The royal instructions to Governor Murray, given from the court of St. James by King George on the 7th day of December, 1763, leave no doubt on this head. The intention to suppress the natural growth of the Catholic church in Canada by crippling it forever at its fountain head by giving no guarantee of the recognition of the Episcopal power and jurisdiction, had already been foreshadowed in the two clauses submitted by Vaudreuil in the terms of the capitulation of Montreal.

Article XXX: “If by the treaty of peace Canada shall remain in
the power of His Britannic Majesty, His Most Christian Majesty
shall continue to name the bishop of the colony, who shall always
be of the Roman communion and under whose authority the people
shall exercise the Roman religion: ‘Refused.’”

Article XXXI: “The bishop shall, in case of need, establish new
parishes and provide for the building of his cathedral and his
Episcopal palace; and in the meantime he shall have the liberty
to dwell in towns or parishes as he shall judge proper. He shall
be at liberty to visit his diocese with the ordinary ceremonies
and exercise also the jurisdiction which his predecessor
exercised under the French dominion, save that an oath of
fidelity or a promise to do nothing contrary to His Britannic
Majesty’s service, may be required of him: ‘This article is
comprised under the foregoing.’”

The reason for this was signalized in the instructions later to Murray, Carleton and Haldimand in the clause beginning:

“And to the end that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the
lord bishop of London may take place in our province under your
government as conveniently as possible,” etc.