[Sidenote: Canadian feeling at the beginning of 1775.] [Sidenote: Carleton strongly urges employing the Canadian gentry in the regular army.] The year 1774 ended in anxiety and suspense, and the year 1775 opened, memorable and disastrous to Great Britain. On Christmas Day, 1774, Gage had written again to Carleton on the subject of Canadian and Indian levies, and on the 4th of February, 1775, Carleton answered the letter.[75] Political matters relating to the Indians, he said, he had always considered to be the special charge of the late Sir William Johnson, and outside the sphere of his own authority, but his intelligence was to the effect that the Indians would be ready for service if called upon.[76] Of the Canadians Carleton wrote that they had in general been made very happy by the passing of the Quebec Act, but he reminded Gage that that Act did not come into force until the 1st of May following, that the new commissions and instructions expected in connexion with it had not yet arrived, and that the whole machinery for carrying out the new system of government had still to be created. ‘Had the present settlement taken place,’ he added, ‘when first recommended, it would not have aroused the jealousy of the other colonies, and had the appearance of more disinterested favour to the Canadians.’ He pointed out that the gentry, ‘well disposed and heartily desirous as they are, to serve the Crown, and to serve it with zeal, when formed into regular corps, do not relish commanding a bare militia.’ They had not been used to act as militia officers under the French Government, and they were further deterred from taking such employment by recollection of the sudden disbandment of a Canadian regiment, which had been raised in 1764, and subsequently broken up, ‘without gratuity or recompense to officers, who engaged in our service almost immediately after the cession of the country, or taking any notice of them since, though they all expected half pay.’[77] The habitants, again, had since the introduction of civil government into Canada, and in consequence of the little authority which had been exercised, ‘in a manner emancipated themselves.’ Time and good management would be necessary ‘to recall them to their ancient habits of obedience and discipline’, and meanwhile they would be slow to allow themselves to be suddenly and without preparation embodied into a militia. Carleton accordingly deprecated attempting to raise a militia force in Canada and recommended enlisting one or two regular battalions of Canadian soldiers. ‘Such a measure might be of singular use, in finding employment for, and consequently firmly attaching the gentry to our interests, in restoring them to a significance they have lost, and through their means obtaining a further influence upon the lower class of people, a material service to the state, besides that of effectually securing many nations of savages.’