"A view of foreign affairs and political transactions from which a judgment may be formed of the interests and connections of the several powers of Europe; to collect the transactions and occurrences of our mother-country; and to introduce every remarkable event, uncommon debates, extraordinary performances, and interesting turn of affairs that shall be thought to merit the notice of the reader as matter of entertainment, or that can be of service to the public as inhabitants of an English colony....And here we beg leave to observe that we shall have nothing so much at heart as the support of virtue and morality and the noble cause of liberty. The refined amusements of literature and the pleasing veins of well-pointed wit shall also be considered as necessary to the collection--interspersed with other chosen pieces and curious essays extracted from the most celebrated authors--so that, blending philosophy with politics, history, etc., the youth of both sexes will be improved, and persons of all ranks agreeably and usefully entertained."[35] With such a high conception of its functions, the _Quebec Gazette_ launched itself twenty-four years in advance of the London _Times_, and fourteen years before Benjamin Franklin founded the _Montreal Gazette_. [Footnote 34: It was changed into a bi-weekly in 1818, and in 1874 was merged into the _Chronicle_ as a daily paper.] [Footnote 35: Article by John S. Reade in the Centenary number, _Quebec Gazette_, 1864.] Since the Conquest, Quebec had been governed under the terms of a royal proclamation which, remarkable to relate, prescribed no definite forms of administration; and by the articles of capitulation almost everything was left to the discretion of the Governor. General Murray proved himself a discreet ruler; but friction of some sort was almost inevitable in a situation presenting such conflicting interests and delicate problems; and it now came from those few hundred British settlers who wrongly supposed that their nationality gave them privileges over ten times their number of French fellow-subjects. Governor Murray, fortunately, held no partisan views; and his policy was followed with equal firmness and greater success by Sir Guy Carleton, who next assumed the administration in 1766. The new Governor had, indeed, a remarkable connection with the history of Quebec. In 1759 he had accompanied his friend James Wolfe to the siege of the city, and like his General, was wounded on the Plains of Abraham. He remained with Murray in Quebec during the trying winter of 1760, and fought in the battle of Ste. Foye. And now, after a brilliant campaign in the West Indies, the gallant soldier was returning to the fortress on the St. Lawrence at another critical moment in its history.