anada was under a government of military men, whose headquarters were
at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal--the capitals of the old French
districts of the same name. General Murray and the other commanders
laboured to be just and considerate in all their relations with the new
subjects of the Crown, who were permitted to prosecute their ordinary
pursuits without the least interference on the part of the conquerors.
The conditions of the capitulations of Quebec and Montreal, which
allowed the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, were
honourably kept. All that was required then, and for many years later,
was that the priests and cures should confine themselves exclusively to
their parochial duties, and not take part in public matters. It had been
also stipulated at Montreal that the communities of nuns should not be
disturbed in their convents; and while the same privileges were not
granted by the articles of capitulation to the Jesuits, Recollets, and
Sulpitians, they had every facility given to them to dispose of their
property and remove to France. As a matter of fact there was practically
no interference with any of the religious fraternities during the early
years of British rule; and when in the course of time the Jesuits
disappeared entirely from the country their estates passed by law into
the possession of the government for the use of the people, while the
Sulpitians were eventually allowed to continue their work and develope
property which became of great value on the island of Montreal. (The
French merchants and traders were allowed all the commercial and trading
privileges that were enjoyed by the old subjects of the British
Sovereign, not only in the valley of the St. Lawrence, but in the rich
fur regions of the West and North-West.) The articles of capitulation
did not give any guarantees or pledges for the continuance of the civil
law under which French Canada had been governed for over a century, but
while that was one of the questions dependent on the ultimate fate of
Canada, the British military rulers took every possible care during the
continuance of the military regime to respect so far as possible the old
customs and laws by which the people had been previously governed.
French writers of those days admit the generosity and justice of the
administration of affairs during this military regime.

The treaty of Paris, signed on the 10th February, 1763, formally ceded
to England Canada as well