In my research for the book that became Quaking Dover, I became much more aware of the ongoing tensions in New England with the French to the north.
I thought that ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763, but I was wrong.
The British tried to assimilate the Canadiens into the wider society but by 1774 realized the futility of the effort.
To alleviate the situation, Parliament passed the Quebec Act, covering the former New France. The measure permitted the continuation of the French language, legal system, and Roman Catholic religion in what was now enlarged and renamed Quebec. Crucially, reference to the Protestant faith was removed from the oath of allegiance required for holding public office, and the Catholic church could again impose tithes.
Many of the English in the New World were outraged, seeing this as a granting freedoms and lands to their former enemy and including the possibility of stripping them of their self-elected assemblies and voiding their claims to land in the Ohio Country, granted by royal charter to New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia but now unilaterally ceded to Quebec.
The act had been passed in the same session of Parliament that imposed punishments on the Boston Tea Party, among other affronts the Patriots derided as the Intolerable Acts.
Patriots also saw the measure as establishing Roman Catholicism in the 13 colonies and promoting the growth of “Papism.” in general.
I was unaware of its inflammatory influence as a direct cause of the American Revolution until I heard of the measure as an aside on a CBC Radio commentary.
Just nine months after the act’s enactment came Paul Revere’s midnight ride and the “shot heard ‘round the world” in the rebellion at Boston.
Barely two years after its passage, the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in Philadelphia.
C’est vrai.
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