Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/230

 preferred to be tried directly by a Judge, in a language they understood. On the other hand the English settlers wanted British law in both criminal and civil cases. They did not like the French way of buying and selling land, and settling disputes about property. General Murray the first Governor after 1763, and his successor, Sir Guy Carleton, both, tried to befriend the French, and in so doing displeased the English settlers. To please the former they allowed French civil law—that is the law relating to property and inheritance—to prevail; while the demands of British settlers were—met by giving them English criminal law, which includes trial by jury. The consequence was both English and French were dissatisfied, and after considerable delay and many complaints, the British parliament tried to remedy the evil by passing in 1774 what is known as the Quebec Act. This Act extended the boundaries of Canada from Labrador to the Mississippi, and from the Ohio river to the watershed of Hudson’s Bay. It gave the French the same political rights as the British, regardless of their religion. It gave the Roman Catholic clergy the right to collect tithes (the tenth part of the produce) and their “accustomed dues” from their own people. The French law or Custom of Paris was made the law in civil cases—and English law, the law in criminal cases. The Government was to consist of a Governor and Council appointed by the Crown. The Council was to consist of not less than seventeen and not more than twenty-three members, the majority being of British birth.

5. Canada invaded by the Americans.—Another reason for passing this law must now be mentioned. The English colonies in America had for many years felt it a grievance that Britain should endeavor to force them to trade exclusively with her. Nearly everything they sold had to go first to England, and they had also to buy the most of their manufactures from the people of the mother country. At that time all European nations thought that their colonies existed for the good of the mother countries, and so they tried to keep the colonial markets for their own trade. So long as the French held Canada the English colonies had to depend upon Britain for aid against the French and their Indian allies; but when Canada became a British possession their fear of attack from the north and west was removed, and the colonies felt more