SECTION I.--From the Conquest until the Quebec Act.

For nearly four years after the surrender of Vaudreuil at Montreal,
Canada was under a government of military men, whose headquarters were
at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal--the capitals of the old French
districts of the same name. General Murray and the other commanders
laboured to be just and considerate in all their relations with the new
subjects of the Crown, who were permitted to prosecute their ordinary
pursuits without the least interference on the part of the conquerors.
The conditions of the capitulations of Quebec and Montreal, which
allowed the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, were
honourably kept. All that was required then, and for many years later,
was that the priests and curés should confine themselves exclusively to
their parochial duties, and not take part in public matters. It had been
also stipulated at Montreal that the communities of nuns should not be
disturbed in their convents; and while the same privileges were not
granted by the articles of capitulation to the Jesuits, Recollets, and
Sulpitians, they had every facility given to them to dispose of their
property and remove to France. As a matter of fact there was practically
no interference with any of the religious fraternities during the early
years of British rule; and when in the course of time the Jesuits
disappeared entirely from the country their estates passed by law into
the possession of the government for the use of the people, while the
Sulpitians were eventually allowed to continue their work and develope
property which became of great value on the island of Montreal. (The
French merchants and traders were allowed all the commercial and trading
privileges that were enjoyed by the old subjects of the British
Sovereign, not only in the valley of the St. Lawrence, but in the rich