on Lake Champlain which is directly opposite to where the south line falls in, and so cross the said River St. Lawrence, and pursuing a north-west course along the heights where the rivers rise which fall into the Ottawa River, to be continued to the east end of Lake Nipissing, where the north line terminates."[1]
It was clear that if the vast uncultivated territory recently acquired by England were annexed to Canada, the government of that colony, even if theoretically civil, would in practice become military. Nor were there wanting those in England who would not have looked upon such a state of things with an unfavourable eye, as the opinion of General Murray, the Governor designate of the new colony, recorded by himself many years afterwards clearly shows. Canada would then have overawed the colonies south and east of it, exactly as it had overawed them in former years before the final removal of those French garrisons, in the dreaded presence of which acute continental statesmen had seen the surest guarantee for the continuance of English rule over the states on the seaboard.[2] In his despatch of the 8th June, Shelburne had stated that the advantages resulting from the restriction of the bounds of the colony of Canada would be those "of preventing by proper and natural boundaries, as well the ancient French inhabitants as others, from removing and settling in remote places where they neither could be so conveniently made amenable to the jurisdiction of any colony, or made subservient to the interest of the trade and commerce of this kingdom by an easy communication with and vicinity to the great River St. Lawrence. The division," he continued, "by the heights of the land to the south of the River St. Lawrence, will on the one hand, leave all your Majesty's new French subjects under such government as your Majesty shall think proper to continue to them, in regard to the rights and usages already secured
- ↑ The line thus indicated was clearly traced out on a map appended to the despatch, both of which may still be seen at the Record Office. The line very closely resembles the first line of demarcation proposed in 1782 by Oswald (see Vol. II. p. 185), during the peace negotiations, as the southern and eastern boundary between Canada and the United States of America.
- ↑ See on the above subject the authorities quoted by Mr. Bancroft, iii. ch. xx., and iv. ch. viii.; ed. 1855.
