George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[214] in Quebec and Montreal, most of them fol-

chap. X.} 1764. Sept.

lowers of the army, of low education, all with their fortunes to make, and little solicitous about the means;¹ so that, as the Catholics were disfranchised, magistrates were to be made, and juries composed from about four hundred and fifty suttlers and traders— men of narrow ideas, ignorant, and intoxicated with unexpected power.

Disorder and division ensued in attempting to introduce the civil administration. The troops that had conquered, and for four years had ruled the country, remained in it, commanded by an officer, who by the new establishment was deprived of the government of half the province, and who remained in every respect independent of the civil authority. As there were no barracks in the country, the quartering the troops furnished perpetual opportunities of displaying their importance and rancor. The meek and unresisting province was given over submissively to hopeless oppression, as cold iron suffers blows on the anvil, but neither takes shape nor sparkles. The history of the world furnishes no instance of so rash injustice.²

The British ministers were still more zealous to restrain and circumscribe the republican spirit of New England. In September, letters were received in New-York, announcing that the king in council had, at the instance of Halifax, dismembered New Hampshire, and annexed to New-York the country north of