Episode 18: The Resurrection

Fourteen years after British forces conquered New France during the Seven Years’ War, Parliament’s passage of the Quebec Act in 1774 resurrects old fears of French Catholic tyranny in Protestant British America. 

Featuring: Katherine Carté, Christian Ayne Crouch, Brad Jones, and Jeffers Lennox.

Voice Actors: Jan Hoffmann, Craig Gallagher, Emmanuel Dubois, Grace Mallon, Bertrand van Ruymbeke, Adam Smith, Anne Fertig, Annabelle Spencer, and Patrick Long.

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske.

Music by Artlist.io

This episode was made possible with support from a 2024 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

Help other listeners find the show by leaving a 5-Star Rating and Review on Apple, Spotify, Podchaser, or our website.

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Worlds Turned Upside Down is a production of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Episode Transcript

Jim Ambuske (00:00):
This episode of Worlds Turned Upside Down is
Two days later, Claus told themthere was nothing he could do.
made possible with support froma 2024 grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
In the summer of 1773, DanielClaus set out from his home in
Albany, New York and headednorth for the colony of Quebec.

(00:23):
He was nearly 46-years-old whenhe began a familiar journey to
the conquered province.
For thirteen years now, Quebechad been under British dominion.
It had once been the heart ofNew France, the heart of
Catholicism in eastern NorthAmerica, and the center of a
French empire that stretchedfrom Nova Scotia in the east to

(00:46):
the Great Lakes in the west, anddown south into the Ohio Country
and beyond to Louisiana.
The Catholic French populationcould never match the size of
its more numerous and ProtestantBritish rivals, who settled
along the east coast, but thenagain, the French never wanted

(01:06):
He had spoken with the colony’sofficials, including the
to. Theirs was an empire oftrade encompassing a vast
territory claimed by the Frenchcrown, but in reality these were
the lands of many nativenations.
For more than 150 years, theFrench had nurtured
relationships with Indigenouspeoples like the Huron, Mi'kmaq,

(01:27):
and Haudenosaunee, binding themall in webs of reciprocity,
faith, and warfare that kept theBritish at bay and the fur trade
profitable.
But with the outbreak of war inthe Ohio Country in 1754, a
conflict that soon engulfed theAtlantic world in turmoil for
seven years, the balances ofpower began to shift.

(01:50):
Early French and Indigenousvictories drove the British to
the precipice of defeat. ButFrench commanders sent from
Europe insulted their nativeallies by refusing to supply
them with the gifts and goods socentral to Indigenous diplomacy,
and the British government beganborrowing ghastly sums of money
lieutenant governor and thesecretary of the province, who
to fund its war effort. Soon,the tide began to turn.

(02:14):
When the war began, theHaudenosuanee were the most
powerful people in eastern NorthAmerica, skillfully balancing
the French and British againsteach other to preserve their own
homelands, their sovereignty,and the rights they claimed over
the Ohio Country. They broketheir neutrality in the late
1750s, siding with the Britishin a bid to bring a long war to

(02:37):
a swift end, granting theBritish the key to victory in
the Great War for Empire. TheBritish captured Quebec City in
1759. Montreal fell to Britishforces a year later.
With New France’s defeat, tensof thousands of Catholic French
settlers became subjects of theProtestant British king. British

(02:59):
Americans celebrated the defeatof popish tyranny and the
triumph of their empire ofliberty, though some were uneasy
about adding a Catholic colonyto the Protestant British
interrogated the priest aboutthe property. The Jesuit denied
constellation.
With victory came newresponsibilities and new
relationships to nurture. InLondon, the king’s ministers

(03:20):
began deliberating on how bestto fold Catholic Quebec into
Protestant British America.
In the colonies, Daniel Clauswas appointed deputy Indian
agent for the Canadianterritories now claimed by the
British crown. For Claus, hisjourney to Quebec had been an
unexpected one.
Born in Boennigheim in what isnow southwest Germany, Claus was

(03:43):
among the many German-speakingmigrants who made their way to
Pennsylvania in the late 1740s.He was lured to the colony with
false promises of becoming amerchant who dealt in tobacco
and silk. With his dreamsdashed, and unable to afford
passage home, Claus found workas a tutor for the son of Johann

(04:04):
Conrad Weiser, a fellow German,who served as Pennsylvania's
chief diplomat to Indigenousnations like the Lenni Lenape
and the Haudenosaunee, or SixNations Iroquois.
that his predecessor had everagreed to place a boundary
Claus quickly became involved inthat work as well, spending time
with the Onondaga and livingwith the Mohawk, immersing
himself in the language andcustoms of Indigenous diplomacy.

(05:12):
around the Huron lands. In fact,the land wasn’t even theirs to

(06:18):
begin with. A search of theprovincial records found that:

Daniel Claus (07:19):
“the Land you live on was to all intents & purposes
a Deed of Gift from a frenchGentleman…to the Jesuits at this
Place for spiritual Services, sothat they are the sole and
lawful proprietors.”

Jim Ambuske (07:34):
Claus chided them that their ancestors had chosen
to live near Quebec City underFrench law. And now,

Daniel Claus (07:42):
“as Providence would have it that by the
Success of the British Army thisCountry became Subject to the
Crown of England you have seenthat the English Laws have taken
place with the FrenchInhabitants of this Country and
they are ruled and Governed bythem. It’s therefore supposed
you cannot have the leastObjection of conforming to these

(08:03):
Laws as you have done to the french.”

Jim Ambuske (08:06):
Their minor dispute was part of a much larger story
of a former French Catholiccolony struggling to find its
place in a Protestant Empire,one that George III’s ministers
in London had been laboring overfor years, drawing up plans for
reform.
By 1774, their plan wascomplete, and their timing

(08:28):
couldn’t have been worse. Forjust as British Americans began
rallying to resist Parliament’snew Coercive Acts, they learned
of a new measure thatresurrected an old fear:
Quebec’s border would beextended south to the Ohio
River, French law would berestored, the Catholic religion
would be tolerated, and itseemed that New France would be

(08:53):
reborn.
I’m Jim Ambuske, and this isWorlds Turned Upside Down, a
podcast about the history of theAmerican Revolution.

Episode 18 (09:12):
The Resurrection
In September 1760, BritishGeneral Jeffrey Amherst and his
army began laying siege toMontreal. Quebec city had fallen
to British forces a yearearlier, leaving Montreal as the
last major town to resist theconquest of New France.

(09:32):
Over the protests of his seniormilitary commanders, who
believed that capitulation totheir British adversaries would
shame and dishonor them all, thecolony’s governor the Marquis de
Vaudreuil saw little choice butto strike his king’s colors and
surrender Montreal and NewFrance to Amherst and his
British king.

(09:52):
In surprisingly generous terms,Amherst permitted French
settlers, known as the habitant,the continued free exercise of
their Catholic faith, and agreedto allow the seigneur, the
landed lords of the colony, tokeep their lands and their
property.
Amherst knew that his decisionswould be vetted by the king’s
ministers in London, who wouldeventually negotiate a final

(10:15):
treaty of peace with the Frenchin Paris, though he was
confident they would ratifythem.
Nevertheless, in dealing withGovernor Vaudreuil, Amherst
wanted to make one thing veryclear: This was the end of New
France. The old colony – wasnow a British dominion. He
denied Vauldreuil’s request thatFrench settlers would not be

(10:37):
compelled to fight against theirold king should the war
continue, and that they remaingoverned “according to the
custom of Paris, and the Lawsand usages established for this
country.”
Of Vaudreuil’s pleas in favor ofFrench settlers, Amherst simply

replied (10:54):
“They become subjects of the king.”
The full meaning of thegeneral’s terse reply was not as
simple as at first it mightseem. What it meant to now be a
subject of the British crown wasnot immediately clear. Nor was
it readily evident how theBritish intended to govern
Quebec as a colony, or what thelimits of its territory might

(11:16):
be.
But the choices the British madein the wake of the war and the
addition of thousands ofCatholic French settlers and new
Indigenous nations to GeorgeIII’s dominions only complicated
British efforts to reform theolder Protestant colonies and
realize a new imperial vision.

Jeffers Lennox (11:34):
Quebec is a British colony at the time of
the outbreak of the AmericanRevolution. It's just a very
unique British colony. JeffersLennox professor in the
Department of History atWesleyan University. It fits
unevenly in the story, and it'seasily written out when we are
writing nationalist historiesbackwards, because it does not

(11:55):
become part of the UnitedStates, but it was centrally
important to the revolutionaryprocess.

Jim Ambuske (12:01):
So, how did the conquest of New France and
Quebec challenge the idea of aProtestant British America? How
did the British govern theseconquered lands? And why did
British reforms in Quebecinspire fears of a resurgent New
France in the east?
To begin answering thesequestions, we’ll head first to
Quebec, to chart the contours ofthe conquered colony. We’ll then

(12:25):
head to London to draw up newplans to reimagine a very old
colony, before returning toBritish America to consider why
colonists who helped bring NewFrance to its knees found the
Quebec Act so intolerable.
With the Treaty of Paris in1763, King Louis XV of France

(12:47):
ceded a vast territory in NorthAmerica to King George III of
Great Britain.

Jeffers Lennox (12:52):
Canada, in the later 18th century has become a
shorthand for what we would nowthink of as the province of
Quebec. Quebec and Canada weresometimes for the French
synonymous with French NorthAmerica. They would use these
terms interchangeably.

Jim Ambuske (13:09):
From Quebec, French officials maintained their
king’s claims over the contestedOhio Country, a region long
prized by British settlers inPennsylvania and Virginia. In
reality the French exertedlittle actual control over the
space. It was inhabited bypowerful native nations like the
Odawa, Lenni Lenape, Myaamia,and Shawnee, over whom the

(13:31):
Haudenonausnee claimed dominion.
When the British formallyannexed New France in 1763, the
king’s ministers began makingchanges to Quebec’s boundaries.
George III’s Royal Proclamationof October 7, 1763 drew new
lines on a map. It created theProvince of Quebec and placed it

(13:52):
under a civil government.

Jeffers Lennox (13:54):
The 1760s and then to the 1770s the British
redefine Quebec as a muchsmaller slice of land along the
St Lawrence River, and it was asettlement project, like just
about all these settlementprojects, it was primarily
indigenous. The French hadclaimed it and claimed to

(14:14):
control it, when in reality, andthis is the same for British
settlements, they had littlepails, they had towns, and they
had urban centers, and somesettlements outside of those
urban centers, but for the mostpart, this was indigenous
territory.

Jim Ambuske (14:28):
The British not only acquired land, they
acquired conquered peoples.

Jeffers Lennox (14:32):
There are about 70 - 75,000 French inhabitants
living in what had been NewFrance.

Jim Ambuske (14:42):
The loss of New France was devastating for the
French colonial elite. Manyevacuated and resettled in
France, only to face scorn, andin some cases, official
government inquiries. Within afew years, some returned to the
now British colony.

Jeffers Lennox (14:58):
Most of the French habitants stay and find
ways to work under the Britishsystem.

Lord Dartmouth (15:03):
It runs counter to our understanding of what
this could be like. My name isChristian Ayne Crouch, I am the
Dean of Graduate Studies andassociate professor of history
and American and IndigenousStudies at Bard College. For the
habitant who are not in theLaurentian Valley, it is not the
disaster that we would imagineit to be, because much of the

(15:27):
fighting takes place much closerto the coast. It doesn't change
their day to day farming forthose who are voyager or
merchants who circulate in thecontinental interior, it doesn't
change their relationships withnative peoples. It doesn't

Jeffers Lennox (15:43):
French inhabitants, which is not
change French presence at theseforts and other places. So it's
not the dramatic event that weimagine it to be.

(16:59):
successful in the ways that theBritish want by the time that
they capture Quebec, this is nota new idea for them. They have
to think about, how are we goingto incorporate these groups into
our British system?

Jim Ambuske (17:12):
Expelling 75,000 French settlers was an
impractical choice. Besides thelogistical feats involved in
such an operation at the end ofa very expensive war, rapidly
depopulating the colony wouldopen the territory to competing
Indigenous nations who claimedit and even British Americans
from the east who desired it.

(17:33):
Even so, the British had littlereason to trust French colonists
in the years immediatelyfollowing the conquest. Having
just defeated the French, theBritish quickly began planning
for the next war against theirold enemies.
In 1760, the British placedQuebec under military rule, and
divided it into three districts,with governors named in Quebec

(17:55):
city, Montreal, andTrois-Rivières.
General James Murray was namedgovernor in Quebec city. Murray,
the son of a Scottish lord,ordered a census of each parish
under his government so that heand his superiors in London
could have a better portrait ofthe people that Britain now
ruled. Completed the followingyear, the census recorded more

(18:17):
than 30,000 people living inMurray’s district, including
over 7,000 males, many ofmilitary age. As Murray argued,
the census along with new mapsand other information would
ensure that Britain would:

James Murray (18:32):
“never again be at a loss how to attack, and
conquer this Country in oneCampaign.”

Jim Ambuske (18:38):
But as the terms offered by General Amherst in
Montreal would suggest, theBritish quickly realized that
maintaining peace and order inQuebec meant tolerating
Catholicism and French culture.

Lord Dartmouth (18:50):
The terms by which the colony is seated or
that it capitulates with areactually quite generous to the
evitan and ultimately arecodified after the Treaty of
Paris in 1763 French Canadiansstill get to serve in local
government. The right toCatholic worship is protected.

(19:11):
They continue to use French asthe primary language.

Jeffers Lennox (19:16):
They realize that the French Canadians in
Quebec are quite Catholic andare quite religious, and take
their instruction from theirpriests and bishops. Those are
the groups that the Britishfirst try to win over. And this
is an era of Catholic faithwhere what you were doing during
your life was secondary to whatwould happen when you die.

(19:38):
That's what the real payoff was.And part of the Catholic
instruction was, you listen topeople who are in charge. And so
a lot of these habitant would goto their parishes on Sunday, and
their priest would say, Look, weare now under the British it's
your duty to follow what theBritish want to do. And that was
not a huge issue.

Jim Ambuske (19:56):
Besides Catholicism, the British
appropriated the deeply-rootedland system in Quebec as they
built part of British Americaatop the old French regime. In
the seventeenth-century, theFrench had established the
seigneurial system, a type offeudal land tenure, in which
French kings granted land to thecolonial elite. The elite

(20:17):
sub-granted land to thehabitants, who worked the ground
and paid their rents out of whattheir farms produced.
Labor obligations, known ascorvée, were also key to the
seigneurial system. Each year,male settlers owed two to three
days worth of service on theirfeudal lord’s property, anything
from repairing the seigneur’shome to digging ditches. These

(20:39):
labor obligations extended tothe colonial government as well.
The habitants were obliged tospend several days a year
laboring for the state, oftenbuilding roads or improving
fortifications.
The British were all too willingto preserve a system that
ensured stability, kept the landunder cultivation, and provided
Quebec’s new rulers with aguaranteed source of labor

(21:02):
reinforced by over a century oflaw and custom.
Both Governor Murray in Quebecand Governor Thomas Gage in
Montreal saw the crucial valuein corvée, especially as the
colony’s fortifications were inneed of repair following the
war. As a result:

Jeffers Lennox (21:18):
Over the course of the 1760s one of the
interesting things that developsis the first British governors
of Quebec rave about the FrenchCatholics. They talk about how
they are fantastic citizens andhow they could become model
British subjects if they wereallowed to maintain the things
that defined them as acollective and individually,

(21:40):
their religion, their language,coming off of the Acadian
expulsion. There's almost a 180when they get to the French in
Quebec, because these governors,who think they're going to go in
and try to have a very hard linerealize that the French
Catholics are exactly the kindof subjects that they want.
They're willing to keep working.They don't really want to pay
taxes, but they will contributeto their churches. They are not

(22:02):
causing a whole lot of problemsfor the British. They just want
their language and they wanttheir faith.

Jim Ambuske (22:10):
French Canadian merchants maneuvered to make the
best of their new world as well.In New France’s defeat, François
Baby saw opportunities.
Baby was born in Montreal in theearly 1730s into a family that
was heavily invested in theIndigenous fur trade. Educated
by the Jesuits in Quebec, Babyjoined the family business in

(22:32):
the early 1750s, handlingimports from major French cities
like La Rochelle, Bordeaux, andParis.
In the spring of 1760, Babyfought with French forces in a
failed attempt to retake Quebeccity from the British. Later
that year, he sailed for Europe.Inexplicably, if not naively,

(22:53):
with the war still raging inEurope, Baby followed the advice
of another merchant and tried tomake contact with an English
firm, leading to his capture andimprisonment in London.
Following his release, Babycrossed the English Channel, and
settled in La Rochelle for atime, all the while making
efforts to shore up hisconnections in England and

(23:13):
France, ensuring his own andfamily’s future in the post-war
era.
Baby returned home in 1763 afterthe war came to an end. Having
once refused to pledge fealty tothe British king, Baby accepted
what had been done and whatcould be. He settled first in
Montreal, and then returned tohis native Quebec in 1765, where

(23:37):
he became an importer of Britishgoods for the provincial market.

Jeffers Lennox (23:59):
The same is true with the Indigenous nations
living in their homelands. Theyare forced to adjust as they had
always been forced to adjust tonew settler realities.

Jim Ambuske (24:10):
This was especially the case for peoples like the
Huron whom Daniel Clausencountered at Lorette, who were
living within the bounds ofFrench and later British
settlements in Quebec, andchallenging European ideas about
property that did not conform totheir own Indigenous ways of
thinking.
It was also true for Indigenousnations in the Ohio Country.

(24:31):
The Seven Years’ War had begunin the Ohio Country and in the
years that followed both theBritish and the French competed
to win over Native allies in theregion. Gift giving was central
to sustaining these alliances.From the Indigenous perspective,
the quality and quantity ofgifts and goods offered to them
signaled how much their alliesvalued and respected them.

(24:55):
Presented at regular diplomaticconferences governed by
Indigenous cultural protocols,these items helped brighten the
chain of friendship betweenNative and European peoples.
After Montreal fell and NewFrance surrendered in 1760,
however, General Amherst orderedBritish officials to reduce the
number of goods and gifts sentto Indigenous nations in the

(25:17):
Ohio Country. He did so over SirWilliam Johnson’s objections,
who understood how importantgift giving was to sustaining
alliances. What Amherst saw asnecessary measures to reduce
unnecessary expenses with thewar all but over, Native peoples
like the Odawa warrior Pontiacsaw as insults. Nor did they

(25:39):
believe British promises thatthey could restrain Virginians,
Pennsylvanians, and otherBritish Americans from heading
west over the AppalachianMountains into their homelands.
Distressed by these insults, andinspired by a prophetic vision
from the Master of Life, whoinstructed Indigenous people to
abandon the ways of whitepeople, Pontiac and other Native

(26:02):
leaders launched an uprisingagainst the British in 1763 that
nearly drove them out of theOhio Country.
While the British managed tosuppress the revolt, its
outbreak only confirmed for theking’s ministers the necessity
of reorganizing what had beenNew France, and closing off the
Ohio Country from immediatewhite settlement.

(26:23):
By order of George III’s RoyalProclamation of October 1763,
British Americans were forbiddenfrom settling west of the
Appalachian Mountains to preventviolence between white settlers
and Native peoples, and to keepsettlers within the bounds of
the older colonies, orientedeast toward the Atlantic
economy. The crown became solelyresponsible for negotiating with

(26:47):
Indigenous peoples in theregion, creating a legal
framework by which the Britishgovernment recognized them as
sovereign nations in their ownright.
In many ways, the Proclamationbought the British time.
Although some officials hadspent years by this point
sketching out plans to reformthe empire, the magnitude of

(27:09):
Britain’s victory in the war andthe people and territories now
under its control meant that itwould take time to realize a new
imperial vision, one of whichboth the Ohio Country and Quebec
were a part.
In the months and years thatfollowed, British and Native
diplomats negotiated segments ofa boundary line to divide

(27:29):
British and Indigenous America.Yet, that line began eroding and
buckling almost as soon assurveyors marked it out. In
several conferences in the late1760s and early 1770s, the
Cherokee, Haudenonsaunee, andBritish officials like Sir
William Johnson bent theproclamation line to serve their

(27:50):
own interests. The Cherokee andHaudenosaunee recognized that
the British could not reallystop white settlers from moving
west. They negotiated segmentsthat deflected white settlers
away from their own homelands,and vectored them toward the
Ohio Country.
The decisions made by theBritish in Montreal’s Articles

(28:12):
of Capitulation, The Treaty ofParis, and the Proclamation of
1763 were only the beginnings ofa very long process of folding
Quebec and the rest of NewFrance under the British crown.
After the Seven Years’ War, theking’s ministers faced the
delicate challenge ofincorporating different peoples
of different faiths – from theIndian subcontinent in the east

(28:36):
to French Canada in the west –into one coherent empire. From
London, they possessed a view ofa global project that British
Americans could rarely see orever truly comprehend. The Stamp
Act, the Townshend Duties, andthe Tea Act were all measures –
however ill formed or illadvised – to make the whole of

(28:56):
the empire work as one.
In the noise and clamour of therioting and protests, the
crackle of the burning effigies,the splash of tea dumped in
harbors, in the fighting betweensoldiers and civilians, it is
often hard for us to hear thepleas of George III’s French
Canadian subjects in Quebec.

(29:16):
By the late 1760s, the king’sministers in London and British
officials on the ground in NorthAmerica were gathering mounting
evidence that Quebec neededreforming. For Sir Guy Carleton,
it was an urgent matter.
Born into a Protestant family inUlster, Ireland, Carleton had

(29:39):
fought at the Battle of Quebecin September 1759, where he was
wounded. In 1768, the kingappointed him governor of
Quebec, with instructions tomake an assessment of the
province and recommendimprovements. When Carleton
arrived later that fall, theresistance movements in Boston
and other towns on the eastcoast over the Townshend Acts,

(30:01):
colored his view of Quebec andFrench Canadians. In a letter
home to London, he reportedthat:

Sir Guy Garleton (30:08):
“Should France begin a War in hopes the
British-colonies will pushmatters to extremities, and she
adopts the project of supportingthem in their independent
notions, Canada, probably, willthen become the Principal scene,
where the fate of America may bedetermined.”

Jim Ambuske (30:24):
Though he grossly overestimated British American
ambitions in the east at thismoment, having fought in the
last war on ground he nowgoverned, Carleton could easily
imagine that if matters werepushed “to extremities” and the
French intervened in Britishaffairs, French Canadians could
be an internal enemy laying inwait. More must be done to
ensure the loyalty of the king’sconquered subjects.
In a lengthy draft report,Carleton and his governor’s
council wrote that confusionreigned in the province over
whether English or French lawsought to apply in the
administration of justice.
Since the conquest, English lawwas supposed to govern Quebec,
but pronouncements made on paperwere often impractical on the
ground. Judges and lawyers oftenemployed elements of both legal
cultures when deciding civilcases. French Canadians used
English laws when it wasadvantageous for them to do so,
but still divided up andinherited property according to
French civil customs.
In a petition to the king,nearly 60 French Canadians wrote:

Petition (31:31):
“Sans fatiguer Votre Majesté par le détail des meaux
que leur a Occasionné Laprivation de ces avantages, dont
elle a été instruite par desreprésentations précedentes de
La part de vos fidels SujetsCanadiens; ils se contenteront
de Lui dire que..."
“Without wearying Your Majestywith details of the ills which
the deprivation of theiradvantages have occasioned them,
concerning which Your Majestyhas been informed by previous
representations, on the part ofyour faithful Canadian subjects,

(31:52):
they will be content with simplytelling you that from the
different mode of procedure bothas regards form and essence in
civil affairs, and from theexorbitant rate of the fees
exacted by the Lawyers there hasensued the Ruin of a
considerable number of families.Your Canadian people, Sire, who

(32:12):
are already overwhelmed by somany other calamities, had no
need of this increase ofmisfortune.”

Jim Ambuske (32:19):
Carleton and his council suggested a compromise.
As French Canadians seemed tohave no objection to English
criminal law, they recommendedthat it remain in place, but
that French civil law berestored for civil proceedings.
The question of the continuedtoleration of the Catholic faith
was just as important. By theterms of Montreal’s capitulation

(32:42):
and the Treaty of Paris, FrenchCanadians were free to practice
their religion, but that faithnow barred them from holding
office in the province. Officeholders had to swear an oath to
George III as the defender ofthe Protestant Church of
England, which Catholics couldnot do without violating their
religious convictions.
As the petitioners asked theking:

Petition (33:05):
“La Religion, Sire, que nous professons, et dans la
profession de Laquelle Il vous aplû nous assurer que nous ne
Serions jamais troublées..."
“Could the religion we profess,Sire, and in the profession of
which it had pleased you toassure us that we shall never be
disturbed, though differing fromthat of your other subjects, be

(33:25):
a reason, (at least in YourProvince of Quebec) for
excluding so considerable anumber of Your submissive and
faithful Children fromparticipation in the favours of

(33:49):
the best of Kings, of thetenderest of fathers ? No Sire,
prejudice has never reached YourThrone you love equally and
without distinction all yourfaithful subjects."

Jim Ambuske (34:09):
Catholic French Canadians weren’t the only
prospective office holders. Bythe time that Carleton began his
tenure in Quebec, a considerablenumber of Protestant British
merchants were residing in theprovince. Although the Royal
Proclamation of 1763 empoweredQuebec’s governor to call for
the election of a generalassembly when he believed “the

(34:29):
state and circumstances” of theprovince would admit, the colony
so far remained without one. Themerchants petitioned the king to
direct Carleton to call aprovincial assembly, which they
believed would:

British Petition (34:42):
“strengthen the hands of Government, give
encouragement and protection toAgriculture and Commerce,
encrease the Publick Revenues,and we trust, will in time under
Your Majesty's Royal influencebe the happy means of uniting
your new subjects in a dueconformity and attachment to the

(35:04):
British Laws and Constitutionand rendering the conquest of
this extensive and populouscountry truly glorious.”

Jim Ambuske (35:11):
Carleton carried his report and the petitions
with him when he returned toLondon in 1770 to consult with
the British cabinet and begindrawing up plans to reimagine
Quebec. Shortly after Parliamentpassed the Tea Act in May 1773,
the plan for Quebec was nearlycomplete.

(35:33):
Théophile-Hector de Cramahé washappy to hear it. Quebec’s
lieutenant governor had beenborn in Dublin to a French
family. He believed thatgranting Catholic French
Canadians complete religiousfreedom was the key to securing
their loyalty to the crown. Ashe wrote to Lord Dartmouth,
Secretary of State for theColonies in June:

Théophile-Hector de Cramahé (35:53):
“It has ever been my Opinion, I own,
that the only sure and effectualMethod, of gaining the
affections of His Majesty'sCanadian Subjects to His Royal
Person and Government, was, togrant them all possible Freedom
and Indulgence in the Exerciseof their Religion, to which they
are exceedingly attached, andthat any Restraint laid upon

(36:16):
them in Regard to this, wouldonly retard, instead of
advancing, a Change of theirIdeas respecting religious
Matters.”

Jim Ambuske (36:24):
Dartmouth, Carleton, and other members of
the government knew that shoringup the allegiance of French
Canadians through a more liberalpolicy of religious toleration
would be controversial. Manyargued that a Catholic colony
had no place in a ProtestantEmpire in the first place. In
the Protestant worldview,Catholics were the antichrist,

(36:46):
the Pope was the servant ofSatan, and the King of France
was the Pope’s minion. But by1773, elite British members of
the government who thought inimperial terms had experience
dealing with such arguments.

Katherine Carté (37:01):
When the British gained all this
territory dominated by Catholicsafter the Seven Years' War, they
needed to organize it, and theywere kind of slow in organizing
it. The first places that areorganized are the ceded
territories in the Caribbean. Inplaces like Grenada, they try to
give some rights to Catholicsthere. And there's some pushback
in England. British legislatorsin England are aware that
there's a potential problem. Iam Catherin Carte. I am a

(37:24):
professor of history at SouthernMethodist University. But elite
Brits at this point have takenthe idea of the way that Britain
ensures religious liberty, whichis sort of an essential value of
theirs. They've taken it toinclude toleration of Catholics
on some level. In other words,they've taken it to believe that
they can't become religiouspersecutors, and so when they

(37:47):
organize Quebec, it was designedto show how benign the British
Empire was, and to organize allof this massive territory and
also to centralize it byallowing Catholics to have
liberties in Quebec. The ideawas that the British Empire
would not demand that thesepeople follow the kinds of
Protestant policies that therest of the Empire had to

(38:09):
follow, and they would be morebenign. Now, that was an elite
perspective in Britain. Rank andfile Brits continued to have
real doubts that a Catholiccould ever become a part of the
British Empire.

Jim Ambuske (38:22):
As the plan for Quebec took its final shape,
British officials alsoreconsidered the colony’s
boundaries. French and BritishCanadian settlers sent petitions
to the king asking for theborders to be redrawn. François
Baby himself carried a petitionto London on behalf of several
merchants and seigneurs askingfor the preservation of their

(38:43):
traditional French customs andthe extension of Quebec’s
borders to include Labrador, amajor center of the fur trade.
Carleton, Dartmouth, and othercabinet ministers also looked
southwest to the Ohio Country.Here’s Jeffers Lennox:

Jeffers Lennox (38:59):
While the bulk of the French Canadian
settlement is living roughlybetween Quebec and Montreal.
There is a significant number ofFrench settlers who have pushed
down into the Ohio territoriesand are in now what is Illinois
and when the British restructureQuebec after they capture it in

(39:20):
the 1760s and reduce its sizeinto something that's a
manageable colonial geography.They do realize that they have
left a significant populationoutside of the boundaries of
British law and a Britishadministrative state. And so
there are some discussions aboutwhat to do to incorporate these

(39:41):
French Canadians into a coloniallegal regime. Eventually, the
British realize that they needto extend the provincial
boundaries of Quebec so thatthese French settlers fall
within a legal regime and can bewholly counted as under the
protection of the British.Empire. It doesn't happen

(40:01):
overnight. It's actually yearsin planning.

Jim Ambuske (40:04):
Extending Quebec’s borders southwest to the Ohio
River would bring those waywardFrench settlers more properly
under British rule, while alsoaddressing another problem. As
Lord Dartmouth admitted to thelieutenant governor in December:

Lord Dartmouth (40:18):
“There is no longer any Hope of perfecting
that plan of Policy in respectto the interior Country, which
was in Contemplation when theProclamation of 1763 was issued;
many Circumstances with regardto the Inhabitancy of parts of
that Country were then unknown,and there are a Variety of other
Considerations that do, at leastin my Judgement, induce a doubt

(40:40):
both of the Justice andPropriety of restraining the
Colony to the narrow Limitsprescribed in that
Proclamation.”

Jim Ambuske (40:48):
In other words, the British government’s attempts to
stop British Americans in theolder provinces from moving into
the Ohio Country largely failed.The new plan, embodied in what
became known as the Quebec Act,offered a remedy. Brad Jones
explains the major components ofthe act as it was submitted to
Parliament.

Anne Fertig (41:08):
It reinstate French civil law in the colony of
Quebec, which many of thesesubjects had asked for. It also
establishes a royal governmentin which the colony would be
governed, not by arepresentative assembly, this is
really important, but rather bya royally appointed governor and
Council, which is similar towhat these French Catholics had
lived under French rule. This ismore familiar to them. And

(41:31):
lastly, it tolerated theCatholic faith. French Catholics
were required to still declarean oath of allegiance to George
the Third the king, but theycould practice their faith
freely, and as a consequence ofthat, they could do things like
own land, serve in government,these sorts of things.

Jeffers Lennox (41:48):
So they could keep their language, they can
keep their religion, so they cankeep practicing their
Catholicism, and they canmaintain their civil law, this
particular sort of French Codeof Civil Law, the administrators
in London are aware that if theyextend those three things out
into this massive territory inthe Ohio River Valley, that will

(42:09):
also likely prevent theProtestant settlers from pushing
West, because what they know isthat Protestant settlers do not
like the French. They do notlike Catholics. They're going to
be very confused about the law.There's some explicit records
here where they say, Look, if wewant to prevent these settlers

(42:29):
from pushing West, this is agreat way to do it. And one of
the reasons that they want toprevent these settlers from
pushing West is because theyknow that that will result in
more indigenous wars. And GreatBritain is broke from fighting
the Seven Years War. They'retrying to regroup, and the last
thing that they want to do ishave to launch these new very
expensive wars againstindigenous nations who are
supposed to now be allies withthe British. It's this multi

(42:52):
layered idea to both expand theidea of a British North America
while protecting indigenoushomelands from settlers who are
just dying to push West and toget into these territories.

Jim Ambuske (43:06):
Parliament was supposed to begin debate on the
Quebec Act in early 1774, butships soon arrived in British
ports that January carrying newsof the destruction of the tea in
Boston.

Jeffers Lennox (43:18):
The Quebec Act was supposed to come out
earlier. They just bumped itbecause they were dealing with
what they saw as more immediateconcerns.

Jim Ambuske (43:25):
Parliament didn’t pass the Quebec Act until the
summer of 1774, months afterPrime Minister Lord North pushed
through the Boston Port Act, theMassachusetts Government Act,
and what some colonists calledthe Murder Act.

Jeffers Lennox (43:39):
This is why the Quebec Act tends to fall into
the Intolerable Acts when reallyit was crafted and ready to go
before any of this happened.

Jim Ambuske (43:48):
French Canadians gained many of the concessions
that they had petitioned for,but as Katherine Carté explains,
the British public did not lookupon the act favorably.

Katherine Carté (43:57):
There is pushback against the act in
Britain, real anger against theact in Britain, and particularly
anger against the Anglicanhierarchy, which had supported
the Quebec Act, the Anglicanhierarchy pretty much did
whatever the North governmentwanted them to do, so that was
politically kind of no brainerfrom their end, but they were
also supporting this benignpolicy, and lay people in

(44:18):
Britain, particularly radicals,saw this as a sign that the
Protestant bulwark of theBritish Empire was starting to
crack. And it opens up this ideathat maybe, even at the highest
levels, maybe King George orsome of his ministers, have been
infiltrated by a Catholicconspiratorial menace, and fears
that the actual British statehas been corrupted by popery.

Jim Ambuske (44:38):
How did British Americans react when they
learned of the Quebec Act in thelate summer of 1774?

Jeffers Lennox (44:45):
Well, they weren't happy. This guy, Ezra
Stiles, who was a congregationalminister, he keeps a diary in
the immediate after effects ofthe announcement of the Quebec
Act, and he's in Rhode Island atthe time, and he just casually
mentioned. Oh, you know, theywere marching all the effigies
down the street, and there wasLord North, and there was the

(45:05):
Pope. They're starting toimagine the British
administrators in cahoots withthe Roman Catholic Church. And
of course, at the end of theprocession, they're all lit on
fire. This is happening inseveral places.

Jim Ambuske (45:17):
It is difficult to overstate the amount of fear
that the specter of popery andthe legitimacy that Parliament
now afforded Catholicism in theQuebec Act raised in Protestant
British Americans.
One quick look at a map showedProtestant British Americans
that with the Quebec Act, andthe apparent restoration of New
France, they were now surroundedwith a Catholic French knife at

(45:40):
their backs. Ezra Stiles, thecongregationalist minister, drew
one such map.

Jeffers Lennox (45:46):
It's one of my favorite maps. It's a hand drawn
map. He was sort of an amateurcartographer, and it's North
America, and he calls his mapthe bloody church, even if in
its present state, where it'skind of faded, you can see that
he has painted Canada sort ofblood red, and it's huge. Just
looking at it, it's this massiveterritory, and it's sort of

(46:06):
bleeding into and crowding outthe calmer green Protestant
colonies. He has written on thismap, these little descriptions,
he says, For this territory, thechurch sold the rights of the
British subjects, or the damnedPresbyterians, as they call
them. And then one of myfavorite things is, you can see
he's very religious. He strikesout the word Damn. I don't know

(46:28):
if he feels bad about itafterwards, but like he's like I
swore on a map. I should try toget rid of this. But it's a
great visual representation ofone man's interpretation. But I
do think that it speaks to abroader theme.

Jim Ambuske (46:41):
One writer, adopting the persona of Lord
North, the Prime Minister, wrotegleefully of the Catholic army
he could now raise in Quebec “tocut the throats of those
heretics, the Bostonians.”Rumors swirled that Governor
Carlteon was returning to Canadawith orders to raise 30,000
Catholic soldiers to use againstthe obstinate Protestant

(47:01):
colonies.
In New York, publisher John Holtprinted in the pages of the New
York Journal an anonymous letterfrom Montreal recounting how
Governor Carletontransubstantiated into a
Catholic when he returned toQuebec in September 1774. Here’s
Brad Jones:

Anne Fertig (47:21):
He returns in 74 and there's a story that appears
in every newspaper of hisreturn. In the 18th century,
when British governors wouldreturn to the colonies they were
governing, there would always besome entry ceremony. These entry
ceremonies were very common, andthe purpose of them is that they
represent the monarchy. Theirreturn was a return of

(47:42):
monarchical rule to the colony,and so colonists would gather to
celebrate their return. It wasan opportunity to demonstrate
the colony's loyalty to thecrown and to the empire. It was
also an opportunity for thelocal community to search their
relationship with the returninggovernor, to recognize that they

(48:03):
still had a representativegovernment here, but that they
recognize crown authorities.These always played out in
really formulaic ways, but whenguy Carlton returns, this is the
story that they say. When hereturns, He arrives and he gets
off the boat with his wife, andhe's greeted by the local French
Bishop, who proceeds to stickout his hand, and Guy Carlton
kisses the bishop's hand. Andthe story says that thereafter,

(48:24):
Carlton effectively turned intoa Catholic. And this is often
how Protestant British subjectsdescribed Catholicism. They
believed it was entirely basedon sort of superstition and
magic, that if you have thisilliterate, subjugated
population, things like theidolatry the French Catholic
Church were methods that theChurch used to trick their
people into committing toCatholicism. They say in this

(48:45):
story that he kisses thebishop's hand, and thereafter he
basically scorned the localBritish population in Montreal
and began to make friends withall the French in the city. In
the eyes of Americans, this iswhat's happened, that British
government is literally turninginto French people.

Katherine Carté (49:02):
Conspiracy Theory is one of the core
doctrines of anti potpourri,this idea that there's going to
be a conspiracy against libertythat's going to start at the
top, and it's going to pullapart the whole structure. So
it's fear that runs ahead of anykind of actual act. Americans
respond with real passion. Thefirst fast day organized against

(49:22):
the course of Acts is organizedin Virginia, actually, and it's
stopped by the Royal Governor.But they start taking religious
ceremonies and turning themtowards the revolutionary ends.
In New England in particular,you see really profound
statements of fear of theBritish government, of anti
potpourri being directed at theBritish government, that the

(49:42):
British government is betrayingits own heritage as a Protestant
state.

Jim Ambuske (49:48):
In Boston, the silversmith and Sons of Liberty
member Paul Revere engraved ascene for the Royal American
Magazine that visualized thisbetrayal. In a large room, four
Catholic bishops dance a minuetaround a copy of the Quebec act,
to the delight of fellow clericsseated around them. The Prime

(50:08):
Minister, Lord North, and one ofhis predecessors, the Earl of
Bute, look on, as does theDevil, flying above the
politicians with sharp horns,satanic wings, and hoofed feet.
The demon is pointing to hisnose with one hand, and to Lord
North with the other, makingsure the viewer knows that he is

(50:29):
the true author of all thiswork.
In New York, one poet took theaccusations a step further. In
the poet’s view, the king wascomplicit as well and George III
ought to remember what hadhappened to the Catholic tyrants
Charles I and James II:

Poet (50:47):
“COULD James the Second leave his Grave, Or Charles peep
up, without his Head, How thetwo royal Knaves would rave To
find a Parliament so bread! Tojoin the King, and the Religion
own, For which one lost hisHead, and one his Crown!”

Jeffers Lennox (51:07):
There's lots of angry editorials and letters
about what has happened. Some ofthem are satirical. There was
one and the person signed itsort of the devil on two sticks.
So it's supposed to be writtenby the devil, and he's talking
about how great it is that theBritish have done this in part
because one of the reasons hegives is it'll actually increase
property values because youcan't push West anymore, so the

(51:28):
property you've got is going tobe worth more.

Jim Ambuske (51:31):
For Virginians, Pennsylvanians, and other
colonists who had long prizedthe Indigenous lands in the Ohio
Country, the satirical devilwith the two sticks spoke of a
wider truth.

Jeffers Lennox (51:41):
To be fair, the British settlers on the Eastern
Seaboard are justifiablyfrustrated. They just fought a
war for access to this land.They wanted to get the French
out of New France so that theywould have the opportunity to
push west into these veryfertile territories that were
indigenous homelands. The Frenchdidn't actually control them,
but they had just simplydeveloped better relationships

(52:03):
with the indigenous nationsthere. Of course, that's not on
the minds of most Britishsettlers. They just think this
will be open territory for thetaking. So they're upset that if
they were to do this, they wouldthen be in a territory that
allowed the French language andthe Catholic faith.

Jim Ambuske (52:20):
The Quebec Act only added to a growing list of
intolerable matters for thedelegates from the twelve
colonies who assembled inPhiladelphia for a continental
congress in September 1774.
Just over a week afterconvening, congress adopted the
Suffolk Resolves from SuffolkCounty, Massachusetts Bay as its
own, which called:

Suffolk Resolves (52:42):
"the late Act of Parliament for establishing
the Roman-Catholic religion andthe French laws, in that
extensive country now calledCanada, is dangerous in an
extreme degree to the Protestantreligion, and to the civil
rights and liberties of allAmerica; and there-fore, as men
and Protestant Christians, weare indispensably obliged to
take all proper measures for oursecurity.”

Jim Ambuske (53:03):
New York delegate John Jay was more dramatic. In
an Address to the People ofGreat Britain, Jay wrote that
Quebec was “daily swelling withCatholic emigrants from Europe.”
He feared that they “mightbecome formidable to us, and on
occasion, be fit instruments inthe hands of power, to reduce

(53:27):
the ancient free ProtestantColonies to the same state of
slavery with themselves.”
Massachusetts Bay delegate JohnAdams left cryptic, curious
notes about congress’s October22nd debate on the Quebec Act,
but the final line made hisposition – if not that of all
the delegates – clear:

Unknown (53:46):
"Proof of Depth of Abilities, and Wickedness of
Heart. Precedent. Lords refusalof perpetual Imprisonment.
Prerogative to give anyGovernment to a conquered
People. Romish Religion. FeudalGovernment. Union of feudal Law
and Romish Superstition. Knightsof Malta. Orders of military

(54:06):
Monks. Goths andVandals—overthrew the roman
Empire. Danger to us all. AnHouse on fire."

Jim Ambuske (54:13):
The militancy of the Suffolk Resolves and the
fear swimming through JohnAdams’ notes are difficult to
square with the letter thatcongress sent to the inhabitants
of Quebec at the close of themeeting. In a lengthy address,
written mostly by Pennsylvaniadelegate John Dickinson, and
printed in both French andEnglish, congress invited Quebec

(54:35):
to send delegates to a secondcongress scheduled to convene in
May 1775.
And it argued that the QuebecAct deprived the king’s French
Canadian subjects of theirrights as Englishmen. Among many
rights listed, the right toelect an assembly was chief

(54:55):
among them. Despite thepetitions of some Quebec English
inhabitants, the new act did notauthorize a provincial assembly,
depriving their new fellowsubjects of the right to be
“ruled by laws, which theythemselves approve, not by
edicts of men over whom theyhave no control.”
Congress ignored the public’sProtestant rage and animosity

(55:18):
toward Catholics, pointing toSwitzerland as a place where
both Christian peoples lived inpeace. Besides, love of freedom
transcended faith, and ifCatholic French Canadians would
but join with their ProtestantBritish brethren, they could
together resist Parliament’ssupremacy and restore British
liberty.
But as the delegates in congressand many British Americans in

(55:41):
the older provinces were onlyjust beginning to understand,
what it meant to be British wasundergoing a revolution itself.

Anne Fertig (55:50):
Parliament is beginning to reconceive of the
nature of British subject hood.This is a kind of a progressive
moment in the development ofsubjecthood that they're
beginning to maybe move awayfrom these sectarian attitudes
and embrace the diversity oftheir empire. This is happening
in other places as well, but forAmerican colonists, or ones that
are going to join this emergingPatriot cause, the Quebec Act,

(56:15):
it makes the past decade makesense that if they were under
the impression for the pastdecade. That's to say back to
say the Stamp Act, that theirgovernment was growing
increasingly tyrannical in itsgoverning of the colonies. It
all made sense now. In 1774 itmade sense in the context that
the reason that Parliament wasdoing this was becoming more

(56:35):
aggressive in its governing ofthe colonies and depriving them
of their rights of Britishsubjects, because it was
actually Catholic in nature.They're morphing into these
French rulers. The kinds oftyranny that they'd experienced
over the last decade was not howa good Protestant British ruler
would act. But if they'vesuccumbed to Catholicism, sure

Jim Ambuske (57:04):
In the waning days of the Continental Congress, the
delegates composed anotheraddress, this time, a petition
to the king.
The petition told a story of a“destructive system of colony
administration, adopted sincethe conclusion of the late war”
to a king who proclaimed at hiscoronation oath thirteen years

(57:27):
earlier that he “glories in thename of Briton.”
Standing armies had been kept inBritish America in times of
peace; provincial assemblies hadbeen dissolved; customs
officials could seize propertywithout a warrant; the
commander-in-chief of HisMajesty’s forces in North
America was now governor ofMassachusetts Bay; Parliament

(57:50):
had passed numerous acts to taxthe colonies without their
consent; crown officials couldescape justice in the colonies
by standing trial in England;Boston’s port had been shut up;
colonies made to quarter troops;the charter of Massachusetts Bay
altered; and now theestablishment of an absolutist
government “and the RomanCatholic religion through the
vast regions that border on thewesterly and northerly

(58:11):
boundaries of the freeprotestant English settlements.”
They believed that “designingand dangerous men” in Parliament
had come between George III andfree Protestant subjects in
North America, misrepresentingtheir discontent with Parliament
as signs of rebellion anddisloyalty.
The die had not yet been cast;it was not too late for the king

(58:34):
to end this recent unhappyhistory and make a better
future.
Now, having composed theirpetition, all they could do was
wait for the king’s answer.Theirs was a public plea for
reconciliation. Little did theyknow that in a drawing room at
12 Grafton Street in London,secret talks would soon be
underway to avoid a Britishcivil war.

(59:14):
Thanks for listening to WorldsTurned Upside Down. Worlds is a
production of R2 Studios, partof the Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University.
I’m your host, Dr. Jim Ambuske.
This episode of Worlds TurnedUpside Down is made possible
with support from a 2024 grantfrom the National Endowment for
the Humanities.

(59:34):
Head to r2studios.org to find acomplete transcript of today’s
episode and suggestions forfurther reading. ​
Worlds is researched and writtenby me with additional research,
writing, and script editing byJeanette Patrick.
Jeanette Patrick and I are theExecutive Producers. Grace
Mallon is our BritishCorrespondent. AMBUSKE: Our
lead audio editor for thisepisode is Curt Dahl of cd

squared. AMBUSKE (59:57):
Annabelle Spencer is our graduate
assistant.
Our thanks to Katherine Carté,Christian Ayne Crouch, Brad
Jones, and Jeffers Lennox forsharing their expertise with us
in this episode.
Thanks also to our voice actorsJan Hoffmann Craig Gallagher,
Emmanuel Dubois, Grace Mallon,Bertrand van Ruymbeke, Adam

(01:00:18):
Smith, Anne Fertig, AnnabelleSpencer, and Patrick Long.
Special thanks to AndreasFrings.
Subscribe to Worlds on yourfavorite podcast app. Thanks,
and we’ll see you next time.