to the Revolution this was the most serious, for it set up the doctrine
that charters proceeding from the Crown could be altered by statute.
Thenceforward Parliament was to be omnipotent in colonial matters. The
third act directed that "Persons questioned for any Acts in Execution of
the Law" should be sent to England for trial. It was not intended to apply
to persons guilty of acts of violence, but to officers or soldiers who, in
resisting riots, might have made themselves amenable to the civil law. The
fourth act was a new measure providing for the quartering of soldiers upon
the inhabitants, and was intended to facilitate the establishment of a
temporary military government in Massachusetts. The fifth act had no
direct reference to Massachusetts, but was later seized upon as one of the
grievances which justified the Revolution. This was the Quebec Act,
providing for the government of the region ceded by France in 1763. It
gave to the French settlers the right to have their disputes decided under
the principles of the old French civil law; it guaranteed them the right
of exercising their own religion; and it annexed to Quebec the whole
territory between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the Great Lakes. The
purpose of this act was undoubtedly to remove the danger of disaffection
or insurrection in Canada, and at the same time to extinguish all claims
of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia to the region west of
Pennsylvania.


31. THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS (1774).


[Sidenote: Gage's quarrel with Massachusetts.]

The news of this series of coercive measures was hardly received in
Massachusetts before General Gage appeared, bearing a commission to act as