omed dues and rights," with respect to such persons
as professed that creed.

Sir Guy Carleton nominated a legislative council of twenty-three
members, of whom eight were Roman Catholics. This body sat, as a rule,
with closed doors; both languages were employed in the debates, and the
ordinances agreed to were drawn up in English and French. In 1776 the
Governor-General called to his assistance an advisory privy council of
five members.

When Canada came under the operation of the Quebec Act, the Thirteen
Colonies were on the eve of that revolution which ended in the
establishment of a federal republic, and had also most important
influence on the fortunes of the country through which the St. Lawrence
flows.

[1] The siege of Detroit by Pontiac inspired one of the best historic
novels ever written by a Canadian--_Wacousta, or the Prophecy_, by
Major Richardson, who was the author of several other books.

{280}

XX.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION--INVASION OF
CANADA--DEATH OF MONTGOMERY--PEACE.

(1774-1783.)

The Canadian people had now entered on one of the most important
periods of their history. Their country was invaded, and for a time
seemed on the point of passing under the control of the congress of the
old Thirteen Colonies, now in rebellion against England. The genius of
an able English governor-general, however, saved the valley of the St.
Lawrence for the English Crown, and the close of the war for American
independence led to radical changes in the governments of British North
America. A large population, imbued with the loftiest principles of
patriotism and self-sacrifice, came in and founded new provinces, and
laid the basis of the present Dominion of Canada.

During the revolution emphatic appeals were made to the Canadian French
to join the English colonies in their rebellion against England. With
a curious ignorance of the conditions of a people, {281} who could not
read and rarely saw a printed book, and never owned a printing-press[1]
during the French regime, references were made by the congress that
assembled at Philadelphia in September in 1774, to the writings of
Beccaria and the spirit of the "immortal Montesquieu." The delegates
attacked the Quebec Act as an exhibition of Roman Catholic tyranny at
the very time they were asking the aid and sympathy of French Canadians
in the struggle for independence. A few weeks later the same congress
ignored the ill-advised address a