The new appointments, made over their heads in defiance of their rights, caused M. Souart, on behalf of the seigneurs, to go to Quebec with M. de Maisonneuve, to protest. But while there, de Mézy dealt a further blow by presenting Maisonneuve with his commission of governor of Montreal, thereby intimating that the seigneurs had no right of appointment. M. Souart, relying on the decree of 1644 giving this power to the seigneurs, then the Company of Montreal, protested, and he was ordered to produce the letters patent for proof; meanwhile de Maisonneuve was to act as governor of Montreal, by the power just granted by the governor general, till the king should order otherwise. In the meantime de Maisonneuve acted on his new commission but always without prejudice to the rights of the seigneurs. This loyalty was also shared by Bénigne Basset for, in a contract of marriage for November 16, 1663, he signs himself as clerk in the royal sénéchal's court, notary royal, and clerk for the seigneurs. It may be for this reason that he was supplanted later in his office in the sénéchal's court by Sieur de Mouchy, who had been appointed by the Sovereign Council "for good reasons." Maisonneuve's position at Montreal was also getting insecure. There was now an effort on foot to bring Montreal under control of Quebec as the seat of the royal government and the veteran, de Maisonneuve, as an adherent of the old ways, was jealously viewed by de Mézy and perhaps by Laval. Certainly Montreal was now being dominated by the newly-imported royal policy. But the new colonial policy was to bring good results from the new blood infused. If wisely handled, the new régime would have worked permanent good. The resignation of the Company of New France, on February 24, 1663, was accepted by the king in March of the same year, and the edict on the creation of the Supreme Council followed in the April following. From the date of the establishment of the Supreme Council, September 18, 1663, Civil Government may be said to have begun. Hitherto no deliberative board had sat to discuss the affairs of the colony. There had been a vague and indefinite system of government by the chartered companies, but there had been no constituted hierarchy, either in the political or in the judicial order.