men. They decided to make Canada* over in
the image of the old colonies, to turn the "new subjects," as they were
called, in good time into Englishmen and Protestants. A generation
or two would suffice, in the phrase of Francis Maseres--himself a
descendant of a Huguenot refugee but now wholly an Englishman--for
"melting down the French nation into the English in point of language,
affections, religion, and laws." Immigration was to be encouraged from
Britain and from the other American colonies, which, in the view of the
Lords of Trade, were already overstocked and in danger of being forced
by the scarcity or monopoly of land to take up manufactures which would
compete with English wares. And since it would greatly contribute to
speedy settlement, so the Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared, that the
King's subjects should be informed of his paternal care for the security
of their liberties and properties, it was promised that, as soon as
circumstances would permit, a General Assembly would be summoned, as in
the older colonies. The laws of England, civil and criminal, as near as
might be, were to prevail. The Roman Catholic subjects were to be free
to profess their own religion, "so far as the laws of Great Britain
permit," but they were to be shown a better way. To the first Governor
instructions were issued "that all possible Encouragement shall be given
to the erecting Protestant Schools in the said Districts, Townships and
Precincts, by settling and appointing and allotting proper Quantities
of Land for that Purpose and also for a Glebe and Maintenance for a
Protestant minister and Protestant schoolmasters." Thus in the fullness
of time, like Acadia, but without any Evangelise of Grand Pre, without
any drastic policy of expulsion, impossible with seventy thousand people
scattered over a wide area, even Canada would become a good English
land, a newer New England.

* The Royal Proclamation of 1763 set the bounds of the new
colony. They were surprisingly narrow, a mere strip along
both sides of the St. Lawrence from a short distance beyond
the Ottawa on the west, to the end of the Gasps peninsula on
the east. The land to the northeast was put under the
jurisdiction of the Governor of Newfoundland, and the Great
Lakes region was included in the territory reserved for the
Indians.

It is questionable whether this policy could ever have achieved success
even if it had been follo