No more forced labor! No more carrion birds of the official classes, like Bigot, fattening on the poor habitants! British government in Canada for the next few years is known as the period of military rule. At Quebec, at Three Rivers, at Montreal, the commanding officers established martial law with biweekly courts; and in the parishes the local French officers, or seigneurs, are authorized to hear civil cases. By the terms of surrender the people have been guaranteed their religious liberty; and the Treaty of Paris, which cedes all Canada to England in 1763, repeats this guarantee, though it leaves a thorn of trouble in the flesh of England by reserving to France for the benefit of the Grand Banks fishermen the Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, as well as shore rights of fishing on the west coast of Newfoundland. Also, the proprietary rights of Jesuits, Sulpicians, Franciscans, are to remain in abeyance for the pleasure of the English crown. The rights of the sisterhoods are at once confirmed. {278} One of General Murray's first acts as governor is to convey gentle hint to the Abbé Le Loutre, now released from prison and come back to Canada, that his absence will be appreciated by the government. Within a few years there are five hundred English residents in Montreal and Quebec; and now trouble begins for the government,--that wrangle between English and French, between Protestant and Catholic, which is to go on for a hundred years and retard Canada's progress by a century. [Illustration: NORTH AMERICA AT THE CLOSE OF THE FRENCH WARS, 1763] Being British-born subjects, the few hundred demand that the Governor call an assembly,--an elective assembly; but by the laws of England, Roman Catholics must abjure their religion before they can take office, and by the Treaty of Paris the Catholics of Canada have been guaranteed the freedom of their religion. To grant an elective assembly now would mean that the representatives of the five hundred English traders would rule over 70,000 French. When accusing the French Catholics of Quebec of remaining a solidarity so that they may wield the balance of power, it is well to remember how and when the quarrel began. Murray sides with the French and stands like a rock for their right. He will have no elective assembly under present conditions; and he puts summary stop to the business English magistrates and English bailiffs have hatched against the rights of the habitant,--of seizing lands for debt at a time when money is scarce, summoning the debtor simultaneously to two different courts, then charging such outrageous fees that the debtor's land is sold for the fees, to be bought in by the rascal ring who have arranged the plot. Ordinances are still proclaimed in primitive fashion by the crier going through the streets shouting the laws to beat of drum; but as the crier {279} shouts in English, the habitants know no more of the laws than if he shouted in Greek.