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NEED OF A STANDING ARMY

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levies for their own defence, returned to England, leaving the final suppression of the rising to his successor, General Gage. The Virginian militia had already taken the field; but the New England colonies evinced extreme reluctance to comply with Amherst's appeal for aid. Everywhere there was evasion or delay. New Jersey and New York, whose frontiers were being ravaged by the Senecas, stipulated that two-thirds of their men should be employed on their own borders. Massachusetts and Connecticut made similar conditions. The Quaker Assembly of Philadelphia refused to vote its contingent until a body of Pennsylvanian borderers marching upon Philadelphia compelled it, after first calling upon the King's troops for protection against its own people, to consent to take steps to defend them. When raised, 300 of the Pennsylvanian contingent deserted within a month. But at length, after a war of extreme horror lasting fourteen months, the confederacy was shattered by columns operating under Colonels Bradstreet and Bouquet, and peace was signed in September 1764.

The brunt of this arduous warfare was borne by British troops. The reluctance of the colonists to co-operate or even to contribute men for their own preservation had again been clearly demonstrated. But the problem of imperial defence was not confined to danger from the Indians. France, it was thought, would endeavour to regain Canada, and might be helped by an insurrection of her former subjects. In any such war the presence of British troops in America would prove a vital factor. Otherwise French forces massed in the West Indies might be moved to the continent, whilst the arrival of transports from distant England would be left to the hazard of the winds and waves. Moreover, the Spaniards still held New Orleans and the Mississippi.

A standing army, then, was to be kept in America. There remained the problem of paying for its maintenance. Great Britain had been left with an enormous bill of costs to pay. Her debt was double what it had been before the war, and now amounted to over £130,000,000. She was faced, too, with the prospect of greatly increased expenditure in holding and settling her new possessions all over the world. The land tax stood at four shillings in the pound. Since, in America, the advantages to be derived from this great imperial expenditure would to a large extent accrue to the colonies, it was generally agreed that they ought to shoulder some part of the financial burden now laid upon the mother country. It was in these circumstances that Bute's Government had begun to contemplate a change in colonial administration, which should include the establishment in America of a uniform system of government, and of regular troops supported by taxes levied in the colonies by Act of Parliament.1

When Bute suddenly insisted upon resigning after peace was made, the direction of affairs passed into the hands of three men, popularly 1 Knox, W., Extra-Official Papers (1789), II, 29.

designated "The Triumvirate". These were George Grenville, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom Bute had named as his successor, Lord Egremont and Lord Halifax, Secretaries of State (April 1763). During his brief Presidency of the Board of Trade, Charles Townshend had proposed a scheme for taxing the colonies by the authority of Parliament. In this he was following the policy of Halifax, who had suggested the imposition of a stamp tax to Pitt,1 and he was strongly supported by Lord Mansfield and George Grenville. Townshend, however, resigned before he could proceed with his measure in the House (March 1763). To Lord Shelburne, who succeeded him as President of the Board of Trade and Plantations, Egremont now addressed three questions on behalf of the Government (5 May 1763): (1) What new governments should be established in North America, and in what form, etc.? (2) What military establishment would be sufficient? and (3) In what way, least burthensome and most palatable to the colonies, could they contribute towards the additional expense which must attend their civil and military establishments upon the arrangements to be proposed?

The expediency of such contribution, it will be observed, was assumed. In considering the first question, Lord Egremont laid stress upon the importance of deciding two points: "By what regulations the most extensive commercial advantages may be derived from those cessions, and how those advantages may be rendered most permanent and secure to His Majesty's trading subjects?" The newly acquired territory in America had been divided in the past into three districts. To the north lay Canada with some 70,000 French inhabitants; at the extreme south were the Floridas, the land along the Gulf of Mexico, with a few Spaniards living in small and unimportant villages. Between these stretched an immense wilderness around the Great Lakes and in the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley, the home of Indians, wherein were only a few small French settlements such as Detroit and Kaskaskia. It was evidently understood that these districts, so different in themselves, would require different treatment. The representation of the Board of Trade in answer to Egremont's enquiries was dated 8 June 1763. Shelburne proposed that three new colonial governments should be formed. One was to consist of the newly acquired islands in the West Indies, the others of Florida and the province of Quebec. The question of what to do with the region west of the mountains was complicated by Indian rights and rival colonial claims. The opening of that territory for settlement had been deferred during the war. For not only was it a question which must be decided in connection with the rights and protection of the Indians, but the Imperial Government very properly held, then as on future occasions, that land speculation on debatable borders was not permissible in time of war. Not a little

1 Williams, Basil, Life of William Pitt, 1, 299.

THE PROCLAMATION OF 1763

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to the disgust of speculators in furs and lands, colonial governors were instructed in 1761 to prohibit all land purchases beyond the Alleghany Mountains. Several colonies, however, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia and North Carolina, had received by royal grants extensive titles reaching to the Pacific, and their citizens were looking forward to immensely profitable developments in that direction. Other colonies, on the other hand, such as Pennsylvania, whose western boundaries were defined, held now that the trans-Appalachian region having been conquered by the imperial army, its ownership was vested in the Crown.

Regarding the protection of the Indians as an imperial trust, Shelburne proposed to reserve "a large tract of country round the Great Lakes as an Indian country, open to trade, but not to grants and settlements", and that the governors of the existing colonies should be instructed not to make any new grants of lands beyond certain fixed limits. The boundary between the Indian hunting grounds and the region open to immediate settlement should be determined by the superintendents of Indian affairs, who were to satisfy the Virginians by immediately opening for occupation the lands in the upper Ohio Valley. The protection of the vast territory west of the Appalachian Mountains and the Great Lakes was to be secured by the existing forts and such garrisons as the commander-in-chief might find necessary. The proposed restriction of the bounds of Canada so as not to include the newly acquired western territory Shelburne deemed desirable, because it would prevent settlers from moving to remote places where "they neither could be so conveniently made amenable to the jurisdiction of any colony nor made subservient to the interest of the trade and commerce of this kingdom by an easy communication with and vicinity to the great River of St Lawrence". As to contributions from the colonies towards the expense of their civil and military establishment, "on this point of the highest importance" the Board of Trade declined to give an opinion on the information then at its disposal.

Shelburne soon found himself in disagreement with his colleagues not only as to taxing the colonies, but also as to the conduct of colonial business and the arrest of Wilkes. When, upon the death of Egremont, an attempt was made to induce Pitt to join the ministry, Shelburne acted as intermediary. The negotiations failed. Shelburne resigned and, enlisting under the banner of Pitt, became the most intimate and weighty of his supporters. He was succeeded at the Board of Trade by Lord Hillsborough. The Duke of Bedford joined the Government, and a mixed ministry of Whigs was formed of his followers and those of Grenville, with Lord Halifax and Lord Sandwich as Secretaries of State (September 1763). So it came about that the famous Proclamation of 7 October 1763, which was founded

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mainly upon Shelburne's proposals, was issued by his successors. In this matter Halifax was, no doubt, the directing genius.

The publication of the Proclamation was hastened by the conspiracy of Pontiac. The dangers of that rising, as we have seen, were great, but ministers feared even more the French intrigues to which they were attributed. The confidence of the Indians, it was felt, would be restored by the immediate announcement of the real and friendly intentions of the British Empire. Shelburne had proposed that the boundary line of the Indian territory should be run by the superintendents of Indian affairs. But the present crisis would not await the slow procedure of surveyors. The Appalachian divide was therefore adopted as a convenient and conspicuous natural boundary. By the Proclamation the "extensive and valuable acquisitions secured to the Crown by the late Treaty" were erected into four separate governments-Grenada, Quebec, East Florida and West Florida. The boundaries of the latter provinces were defined.1 The coast of Labrador, with the adjacent islands, from the River St John to Hudson Straits, was assigned to the Government of Newfoundland; Cape Breton and the adjoining islands to Nova Scotia. The Government of Grenada, with representative institutions, embraced all the British Windward Islands, Dominica, St Vincent, the Grenadines, Grenada and Tobago. The Crown lands in all three islands were put up for sale. In St Vincent the division of lands roused the resentment of the natives. These were nearly all "Black Caribs", who had ousted the original natives, and now numbered about 2000. They refused to acknowledge allegiance to any European king or to accept any scheme for the settling of the disputed lands. Only after troops had been brought from North America were they compelled to acknowledge British supremacy, and to accept the reserves of land assigned to them in the north of the island.

The governors of the three new colonies upon the continent were empowered to make grants to settlers upon the usual terms as to quit-rents, etc., and free grants to soldiers and sailors who had served in North America during the late war, and were actually resident there. For the protection of the Indians in the hunting grounds reserved to them, the Governors of Quebec and the two Floridas were forbidden to issue any warrants of survey or patents for lands beyond the bounds of their respective governments, or beyond the "sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West or North West", or upon any lands reserved to the Indians. All the land not included within the territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company was reserved under British sovereignty for the use of the Indians, as also the land lying to the westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the west or north-west. The purchase or settlement of such lands, without special leave, was

1 See chapter xxv, p. 776.

PROTECTION OF INDIANS

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prohibited, and settlers there were ordered to remove. To prevent the great frauds and abuses which had formerly been committed in obtaining lands from the Indians, all purchase by private persons of lands reserved for the Indians was forbidden. For the future, the sale of such lands was to be negotiated only by governors at a public meeting with the Indians. Trade with them was declared free, but all Indian traders must take out a licence from the governor and give security for observing the regulations imposed. Henceforth the Indian subjects of the King were to be protected by the Crown from exploitation by unscrupulous traders and settlers. Such intervention by the Home Government was in harmony with the best traditions of British colonial government.1 But the boundary so set between the colonies and the Indian territory, limiting as it did speculation in the western lands, and involving a denial of the claims of the existing colonies to a right of indefinite expansion in that direction, caused bitter resentment and suspicion. It was represented as a selfish attempt to curtail their liberties for the benefit of the British Exchequer. It was, in fact, an endeavour to substitute for the haphazard methods of land settlement which prevailed in many colonies an organised system under the supervision of imperial agents. Subject to the observance of the considered regulations and the rights of the Indians, the Government was anxious to encourage honest settlers to move westwards beyond the mountains.

The haste with which in the end the Proclamation was issued resulted in some unfortunate blunders. Canada, in particular, was affected by the hurried imposition of the ideas of Halifax upon those of Shelburne. For whilst the latter had intended to permit the French inhabitants to enjoy their own laws and customs, Halifax decided at the last moment to include in the Proclamation the decisions affecting all the new colonies, emphasising, in order to attract immigrants, the advantages of English law and representative institutions. Shortly afterwards, instructions were sent to the Governor of Quebec to the same effect as those normally issued to governors of other colonies. English law was thereby substituted for French law in Canada. This was a blunder which was to prove the source of much trouble for some years.2

When Grenville succeeded Bute, he was at once confronted, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the pressing problem of finance. A man of great industry and ability, and guided by a stern sense of duty, he was a master of detail, but lacked that quality of statesmanship which can see beyond the legal aspect of a question and forecast the ultimate reactions of a measure upon society. He was, as we have seen, already disposed to call upon the several parts of the new Empire to contribute towards its expenses. To the heavy burden of debt and 1Cf. Kingsford, W., Hist. of Canada, v, 127 seqq.; Alvord, C. W., Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763. 2 Cf. Grenville Papers, 11, 476.

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