What had British statesmen to guide them in dealing with the question, and what considerations led to the provisions which were embodied in their first measure, the Royal Proclamation of 7th October, 1763? It was evident, in the first place, that a line could, if it was thought advisable, be drawn between the settled parts of Canada and the Western territories, where the French had only maintained outposts and trading stations. The government of Quebec, therefore, which was the new colony, was, as has been seen, limited to the districts of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, and did not include the regions of the lakes, or the territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In the second place, past experience had proved that English dealings with the Indians had been very much less successful than French management, the characteristic features of which were personal relations with a despotic governor and his authorized agents and representatives; and that the Indians enjoyed more protection and were likely to develop greater loyalty and contentment under a central authority--the Imperial Government--represented and advised by Sir William Johnson, than if left to bargain with and to resent encroachments by the various British colonies. Consequently the proclamation reserved the western hinterland ‘under our sovereignty, protection, and dominion for the use of the said Indians’, in addition to safeguarding the existing rights and lands of the natives within the borders of the colonies. In the third place it was obviously desirable to introduce into Canada a leaven of colonists of English race, and more especially of colonists who had been trained to arms and already knew the land and the people. Hence, just as in bygone days Colbert and Talon, when colonizing Canada on a definite system, planted time-expired soldiers along the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu rivers, so the Proclamation of 1763 empowered free land grants to be given in Canada, as well as in the other American possessions of Great Britain, to officers and soldiers who had served in the late war; and it also encouraged British settlers generally by providing that, as soon as circumstances allowed, a General Assembly was to be summoned ‘in such manner and form as is used and directed in those colonies and provinces in America which are under our immediate government.’[39] [Sidenote: and for conciliating the French Canadians.] [Sidenote: Desire to give British privileges to Canada.]