gime. And
her slight, upright figure--erect as any soldier's to
her dying day--almost matched her husband's stalwart form
in dignity of carriage.

The Quebec Act of 1774--the Magna Charta of the
French-Canadian race--finally passed the House of Lords
on the 18th of June. The general idea of the Act was to
reverse the unsuccessful policy of ultimate assimilation
with the other American colonies by making Canada a
distinctly French-Canadian province. The Maritime Provinces,
with a population of some thirty thousand, were to be as
English as they chose. But a greatly enlarged Quebec,
with a population of ninety thousand, and stretching far
into the unsettled West, was to remain equally
French-Canadian; though the rights of what it was then
thought would be a perpetual English-speaking minority
were to be safeguarded in every reasonable way. The whole
country between the American colonies and the domains of
the Hudson's Bay Company was included in this new Quebec,
which comprised the southern half of what is now the
Newfoundland Labrador, practically the whole of the modern
provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and all the western
lands between the Ohio and the Great Lakes as far as the
Mississippi, that is, the modern American states of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

The Act gave Canada the English criminal code. It recognized
most of the French civil law, including the seigneurial
tenure of land. Roman Catholics were given 'the free
Exercise' of their religion, 'subject to the King's
Supremacy' as defined 'by an Act made in the First Year
of Queen Elizabeth,' which Act, with a magnificently
prophetic outlook on the future British Empire, was to
apply to 'all the Dominions and Countries which then did,
or thereafter should, belong to the Imperial Crown.' The
Roman Catholic clergy were authorized to collect 'their
accustomed Dues and Rights' from members of their own
communion. The new oath of allegiance to the Crown was
silent about differences of religion, so that Roman
Catholics might take it without question. The clergy and
seigneurs were thus restored to an acknowledged leadership
in church and state. Those who wanted a parliament were
distinctly told that 'It is at present inexpedient to
call an Assembly,' and that a Council of from seventeen
to twenty-three members, all appointed by the Crown,
would attend to local government and have power to levy
taxes for roads and public buildings only. L