back-stairs politician Bute had come in. Pitt's 'bloody
and expensive war'--the war that more than any other,
laid the foundations of the present British Empire--was
to be ended on any terms the country could be persuaded
to bear. Thus the end of the Seven Years' War, or, as
the British part of it was more correctly called, the
'Maritime War,' was no more glorious in statesmanship
than its beginning had been in arms. But the spirit of
its mighty heart still lived on in the Empire's grateful
memories of Pitt and quickened the English-speaking world
enough to prevent any really disgraceful surrender of
the hard-won fruits of victory.

The Treaty of Paris, signed on the 10th of February 1763,
and the king's proclamation, published in October, were
duly followed by the inauguration of civil government in
Canada. The incompetent Bute, anxious to get Pitt out of
the way, tried to induce him to become the first British
governor of the new colony. Even Bute probably never
dared to hope that Pitt would actually go out to Canada.
But he did hope to lower his prestige by making him the
holder of a sinecure at home. However this may be, Pitt,
mightiest of all parliamentary ministers of war, refused
to be made either a jobber or an exile; whereupon Murray's
position was changed from a military command into that
of 'Governor and Captain-General.'

The changes which ensued in the laws of Canada were
heartily welcomed so far as the adoption of the humaner
criminal code of England was concerned. The new laws