"The granting of lands hitherto
unsettled," so the Board reported in 1761, "appears to be a measure of
the most dangerous tendency." In December of the same year all governors
were accordingly forbidden "to pass grants... or encourage settlements
upon any lands within the said colonies which may interfere with the
Indians bordering upon them."

The policy thus initiated found final expression in the famous
Proclamation of 1763, in the early months of Grenville's ministry. By
the terms of the Proclamation no further grants were to be made within
lands "which, not having been ceded to, or purchased by us, are reserved
to the said Indians"--that is to say, "all the lands lying to the
westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from
the west or the northwest." All persons who had "either willfully or
inadvertently seated themselves" on the reserved lands were required
"forthwith to remove themselves"; and for the future no man was to
presume to trade with the Indians without first giving bond to observe
such regulations as "we shall at any time think fit to... direct for the
benefit of the said trade." All these provisions were designed "to the
end that the Indians may be convinced of our justice and determined
resolution to remove all reasonable cause of discontent." By royal act
the territory west of the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, from Florida
to 50 degrees north latitude, was thus closed to settlement "for the
present" and "reserved to the Indians."

Having thus taken measures to protect the Indians against the colonists,
the mother country was quite ready to protect the colonists against the
Indians. Rash Americans were apt to say the danger was over now that the
French were "expelled from Canada." This statement was childish
enough in view of the late Pontiac uprising which was with such
great difficulty suppressed--if indeed one could say that it was
suppressed--by a general as efficient even as Amherst, with seasoned
British troops at his command. The red man, even if he submitted
outwardly, harbored in his vengeful heart the rankling memory of many
griefs, real or imaginary; and he was still easily swayed by his ancient
but now humiliated French friends, who had been "expelled from Canada"
only indeed in a political sense but were still very much there as
promoters of trouble. What folly, therefore, to talk of withdrawing
the troops from America! No sane man but could see that, under the
cir