f Sagadahock was left in the undisturbed possession of
Massachusetts under the charter of 1691.

[Footnote 50: See Note VII, pp. 147, 148.]

In defiance of this charter the French proceeded to occupy the right
bank of the St. Lawrence, which at the time of the capture of Quebec and
the cession in the treaty of 1763 was partially held by settlements of
Canadians. The Crown therefore acted upon the principle that the right
of Massachusetts to the right bank of the St. Lawrence had thus become
void, and proceeded by proclamation to form the possessions of France on
both banks of the St. Lawrence into a royal colony under the name of the
Province of Quebec.

This was not done without a decided opposition on the part of
Massachusetts, but any decision in respect to her claims was rendered
needless by the breaking out of the War of Independence. It is only
proper to remark that this opposition was in fact made and that her
claim to the right bank of the St. Lawrence was only abandoned by the
treaty of 1783. The country of which it was intended to divest her by
the proclamation of 1763 is described in a letter of her agent, Mr.
Mauduit, to the general court of that colony as "the narrow tract of
land which lies beyond the sources of all your rivers and is watered
by those which run into the St. Lawrence."

It is assigned by him as a reason why the Province of Massachusetts
should assent to the boundary assigned to the Province of Quebec by the
proclamation that "it would not be of any great consequence to you"
(Massachusetts), "but is absolutely necessary to the Crown to preserve
the continuity of the Province of Quebec." The part of the Province of
Quebec whose continuity with the rest of that colony was to be preserved
is evidently the district of Gaspe, of which Nova Scotia, a royal
colony, was divested by the same proclamation. For this continuity no
more was necessary than a road along the St. Lawrence itself, and the
reason would have been absurd if applied to any country lying beyond
the streams which fall into that river, for up to the present day no
communication between parts of Canada exists through any part of the
disputed territory. The narrow territory thus advised to be relinquished
extends, according to the views of Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh,
from the Great Falls of the St. John to Quebec, a distance in a straight
line of 160 miles. It has a figure not far from triangular, of which
this line is the