For some years after the conquest, the form of government was purely military. It was, indeed, only in 1774, that two Acts were passed by the British government, one with the view of providing a revenue for the civil government of the Province of Quebec, as the whole of Canada was then termed, the other, called "The Quebec Act," defining the boundaries of the Province, setting aside all the provisions of the Royal proclamation, of 1763, and appointing a governing Council of not more than twenty-three, nor less than seventeen persons. And whatever may have been the motive for this almost unlooked for liberality on the part of the mother country, it is not a little singular that only a year later, England's great difficulty with her old colonies occurred. The Parliament of Great Britain had imposed, without even consulting the colonists, a tax for the defence and protection of the colonies, on clayed sugar, indigo, coffee, &c., and the colonists resisted. The American colonies contended that taxation and representation were inseparable, and that having no voice in the administration of affairs, they were free from any taxation, but that which was self-imposed, for local purposes. So far, however, from paying any heed to the remonstrances of the colonists, the Imperial Parliament became more exacting and tyrannical. Not only were the necessaries of life taxed in America, for the benefit of the red-tapists and other place-holders of the Imperial government, but a stamp Act was passed through the Imperial Parliament, ordaining that instruments of writing--bonds, deeds, and notes--executed in the colonies, should be null and void, unless executed upon paper stamped by the London Stamp Office. It was then that a coffin, inscribed with the word "_Liberty_" was carried to the grave, in Portsmouth, Massachusetts, and buried with military honours! Had the views of Governor Pownall, of Massachusetts, with regard to the representation of the colonies in the British Parliament, been adopted, no umbrage could have been taken at the imposition of taxes, because the colonies would have been open to civil and military preferment in the state equally with the residents of the United Kingdom. It was, and is, an unfortunate mistake to look upon colonists with contempt. Colonists, more even than the inhabitants of old countries, inhale a spirit of independence. Often, lords of all they survey, they call no man lord. They are the pioneers of their own fortunes. They make glad the wilderness. They produce more than they themselves require. But Great Britain was, at the time of which we speak, perfectly infatuated. On the 4th of Sept. of the very year in which the Quebec Act was granted, 1774, a Continental Congress was held, of which Peter Randolph, of Virginia, was President, to sympathize with the people of Boston, on account of their disabilities, by reason of the tea riot.[5] But such Congresses produced no effect in England.