the frontier posts of Acadie, for the year 1751, amounts to 826,503 livres, 9 deniers. The expense in that year at the post of the point of Beau Sejour alone, for provisions distributed, amounts to 60,000 livres. The expenses of 1752 exceeded

those of 1751.

In 1753 the Marquis Du Quesne attempted to take anew possession of the River Ohio, and built several forts there. The Sieur Marin, whom he sent thither with a numerous body of men, built several forts in that country, and, among the rest, a fort to which the name of the Governor-inChief was given.

M. Bigot states the expenses incurred for that expedition, up to the 1st of October, 1753, at 2,658,230 livres, 9 sols, and 4 deniers. He stated, in his despatch of that month to the French minister, that he had informed the Marquis du Quesne that, from the manner in which the expedition was carried on, it would cost at least 3,000,000, to which the General had answered " que c'etoit le "salut du Canada et qu'on ne pouvoit en departir." Upon the operations ending on the 1st of October, 1753, and stated by M. Bigot to have been paid, is not included the expense of a detachment of 1040 men, who were to proceed under the command of the confidential friend of M. Bigot, M. Péan, to the Belle Rivière, nor the wages of the workmen in digging the foundations of, and in building the forts, nor the expenses of the trans

port of 18,000 or 20,000 quintals of merchandize from Presqu'ile to the River aux Bœufs, a distance of eight leagues, which was effected on men's backs.

In 1753 the same efforts were continued, and a large issue of paper currency was depreciated 30 per cent. M. Bigot drew Bills of Exchange on the French Treasury, to the amount of three millions and a half.

The expenses in the years 1754 and 1755 of the French Government, in carrying on their project of aggrandizement in North America, were enormous. The Intendant's estimate for the French Posts upon the Ohio alone, in the year 1756, amounted to between two and three millions of livres. The estimate of the same officer, transmitted from Canada to France on the 29th of August, 1758, for the following year of 1759, amounted to from thirtyone to thirty-three millions of livres. It appears that twenty-four millions were actually drawn for before the taking of Quebec in September 1759.*

The foregoing circumstances are adverted to for the purpose of showing the character of the war which was terminated by the Treaty of 1763, containing a cession of all the North American possessions of France to Great Britain. It was a war of conquest on both sides, and one wherein each party felt that the question of British or French ascendancy in the North American continent would be finally and irrevocably settled. The efforts made

* Mem. pour M. Bigot., Intendt. de la Nouv. France.

by the British nation, and by the colonists of Great Britain, corresponded with the magnitude of the object at stake. The detail of these need not here be entered into, contained, as they are, in historical works in the possession of all. There is one document, however, of such great intrinsic merit, and disclosing so fully and distinctly the views entertained by the leading men in the English North American Colonies of that day, respecting the controversy which was just about to be settled by the ultima ratio regum, that I cannot forbear to advert to it :

It is entitled "A Memorial, stating the Nature of the Service in North America, and proposing a "General Plan of Operations as founded thereon," and is to be found in the Appendix to a work of Governor Pownal, entitled "The Administration of "the British Colonies." This document is the more important when it is recollected that the map, commonly called "Mitchell's Map," was compiled by the direction of, and from materials furnished by, the author of this paper, and published about the same time that this paper was written :-It was, in fact, a war map.

The Treaty of 1763 left Great Britain sole and undisputed master of all the territory on this side of Mississippi. The French division lines came to be obliterated. They were, in the language of the Civilians, destroyed per confusionem.

It became, then, necessary to establish new

provincial lines of division of the conquered territories.

By the Proclamation of 1763, "The Government "of Quebec is bounded on the Labrador coast by "the River St. John, and from thence by a line "drawn from the head of that river, through the Lake St. John to the south end of the Lake Nipissim, from whence the said line, crossing the River St. Lawrence and the Lake Champlain, in forty"five degrees of north latitude, passes along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty "themselves into the said River St. Lawrence from "those which fall into the sea; and also along the "north coast of the Bay des Chaleurs, and the "coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosier, "and from thence crossing the mouth of the River St. Lawrence by the west end of the island of Anticosti, terminates at the aforesaid River St. "John."

There can be no doubt, as well from the tenor of this proclamation as from other evidence, that the intention of His Majesty's Government at that time was to assimilate the new acquisitions on this continent, in religion, laws, and government, to the other dominions of Great Britain in North America.

It has so often been asserted that Great Britain was restricted by the terms of capitulation from changing the old laws of the country, that many believe such to be the case. But this is an error, as may be seen upon referring to the capitulation itself.

It was expected that the conquest of Canada would secure the tranquillity of the North American possessions of England. The very contrary of this happened, and the prediction of the Duc de Choiseul and of Burke was verified. France no longer skirting our old colonies with her well-ordered line of posts, and the warlike Indian tribes of this continent, over which she possessed unlimited control, -the internal discontents of the colonies ceasing to be compressed by a powerful external enemy, burst forth with increased violence. Great Britain had incurred an enormous expense during the war of 1759, and was desirous of being refunded some portion of it by the colonies. But the colonies themselves had also made immense sacrifices both in men and money. "When Mr. Grenville began to form his system of American Revenue, he stated in the House of Commons that the colonies were then in debt two million six hundred thousand pounds sterling money, and was of opinion they would discharge that debt in four years. In this state those untaxed people were actually subject to the payment of taxes to the amount of six hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year. In fact, however, Mr. Grenville was mistaken. The funds given for sinking the debt did not prove quite so ample as both the colonies and he expected. The calculation was too sanguine, "the reduction was not completed till some years after, and at different times in different colonies."*

* Burke,