By the fourth act all legal obstacles to the quartering of troops in Boston or any other town in Massachusetts were swept away. [Sidenote: The Quebec Act] By the fifth act, known as the Quebec Act, the free exercise of the Catholic religion was sanctioned throughout Canada,--a very judicious measure of religious toleration, which concerned the other colonies but little, however it might in some cases offend their prejudices. But this act went on to extend the boundaries of Canada southward to the Ohio river, in defiance of the territorial claims of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia. This extensive region, the part of North America which was next to be colonized by men of English race, was to be governed by a viceroy, with despotic powers; and such people as should come to live there were to have neither popular meetings, nor _habeas corpus_, nor freedom of the press. "This," said Lord Thurlow, "is the only sort of constitution fit for a colony,"--and all the American colonies, he significantly added, had better be reduced to this condition as soon as possible. [Sidenote: Gage sent to Boston] When all these acts had been passed, in April, 1774, General Gage was commissioned to supersede Hutchinson temporarily as governor of Massachusetts, and was sent over with as little delay as possible, together with the four regiments which were to scare the people into submission. On the first day of June, he was to close the port of Boston and begin starving the town into good behaviour; he was to arrest the leading patriots and send them to England for trial; and he was expressly authorized to use his own discretion as to allowing the soldiers to fire upon the people. All these measures for enslaving peaceful and law-abiding Englishmen the king of England now contemplated, as he himself declared, "with supreme satisfaction."