olonies,
or to be guided by their advice in carrying on his government. His
difficulties were lessened by the fact that the French had no conception
of representative institutions in the English sense, and were quite
content with any system of government that left them their language,
religion, and civil law without interference. The stipulations of the
capitulations of 1759-1760, and of the treaty of Paris, with respect to
the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, were always observed
in a spirit of great fairness: and in 1766 Monseigneur Briand was
chosen, with the governor's approval, Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec.
He was consecrated at Paris after his election by the chapter of Quebec,
and it does not appear that his recognition ever became the subject of
parliamentary discussion. This policy did much to reconcile the French
Canadians to their new rulers, and to make them believe that eventually
they would receive full consideration in other essential respects.

For ten years the government of Canada was in a very unsatisfactory
condition, while the British ministry was all the while worried with the
condition of things in the old colonies, then in a revolutionary
ferment. The Protestant minority continued to clamour for an assembly,
and a mixed system of French and English law, in case it was not
possible to establish the latter in its entirety. Attorney-General
Maseres, an able lawyer and constitutional writer, was in favour of a
mixed system, but his views were notably influenced by his strong
prejudices against Roman Catholics. The administration of the law was
extremely confused until 1774, not only on account of the ignorance and
incapacity of the men first sent out from England to preside over the
courts, but also as a consequence of the steady determination of the
majority of French Canadians to ignore laws to which they had naturally
an insuperable objection. In fact, the condition of things became
practically chaotic. It might have been much worse had not General
Murray, at first, and Sir Guy Carleton, at a later time, endeavoured, so
far as lay in their power, to mitigate the hardships to which the people
were subject by being forced to observe laws of which they were entirely
ignorant.

At this time the governor-general was advised by an executive council,
composed of officials and some other persons chosen from the small
Protestant minority of the province. Only one French Canadian appears to