It is apparent from the foregoing considerations that the government of the Illinois people was de facto in nature. It had no legal foundations. Every action of the military department was based on expediency; although this course was in general acquiesced in by the home authorities, all the officials concerned were aware that such a status could not continue indefinitely. But it did continue for about a decade, during which time the inhabitants were at the mercy of some six or seven different military commandants. In 1774, however, Parliament passed the Quebec Act, which provided, among other things, for the union of all the western country north of the Ohio River, and which but for the cataclysm of the American revolution meant civil government for the whole region. CHAPTER IV. TRADE CONDITIONS IN ILLINOIS, 1765-1775. The peltry trade had been one of the elements which had accentuated, throughout the eighteenth century, the difficulties between France and England in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. It was the chief support of the French government in Canada and now that the English were in undisputed possession of the great peltry districts it became apparent that the management of the trade deserved most serious consideration. It was becoming of increasing importance to the manufacturing monopoly of the mother country, and therefore, in the minds of English statesmen, deserved far more attention than did the few thousand French colonists scattered throughout the West. The desire to increase this branch of commerce dictated in a large measure those clauses in the Proclamation of 1763 which forbade the formation of settlements or the purchase of lands within the Indian reservation, but at the same time declared that the trade with the Indians should be free and open to all English subjects alike. Again, the plan proposed in 1764 related solely to the management of the Indians and to the regulation of the trade with a view to making the English monopoly of intrinsic value to the empire. Even towards the close of the period under consideration there is little or no change of policy so far as official utterances are concerned. In 1772 in a report to the crown, the Lords of Trade made the following declaration: "The great object of colonization upon the continent of North America has been to improve and extend the commerce and manufactures of this kingdom. It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting grounds, and that all colonization does in its nature and must in its consequence operate to the prejudice of that branch of commerce. Let the savages enjoy their deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests the peltry trade would decrease."[108]