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Province of Quebec (1763–1791)

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Province of Quebec (1763–1791)

The Province of Quebec (French: Province de Québec) was a colony in British North America which comprised the former French colony of Canada. It was established by the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1763, following the conquest of New France by British forces during the Seven Years' War. As part of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, France gave up its claim to the colony; it instead negotiated to keep the small profitable island of Guadeloupe.

Following the Royal Proclamation of 1763, Canada was renamed the Province of Quebec, and from 1774 extended from the coast of Labrador on the Atlantic Ocean, southwest through the Saint Lawrence River Valley to the Great Lakes and beyond to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the Illinois Country. Portions of its southwest, those areas south of the Great Lakes, were later ceded to the newly established United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris at the conclusion of the American Revolution; although the British maintained a military presence there until 1796 and the Jay Treaty. In 1791, the territory north of the Great Lakes was reorganised and divided into Lower Canada and Upper Canada.

Under the proclamation, Quebec included the cities of Quebec and Montreal, as well as a zone surrounding them, but did not extend as far west as the Great Lakes or as far north as Rupert's Land.

In 1774, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Quebec Act that allowed Quebec to restore the use of French customary law (Coutume de Paris) in private matters alongside the English common law system, and allowing the Catholic Church to collect tithes. The act also enlarged the boundaries of Quebec to include the Ohio Country and part of the Illinois Country, from the Appalachian Mountains on the east, south to the Ohio River, west to the Mississippi River and north to the southern boundary of lands owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, or Rupert's Land.

Western District was one of four districts of the Province of Quebec created in 1788 in the western reaches of the Montreal District, which were later detached in 1791 to create the new colony of Upper Canada. Known as Hesse District (named after Hesse in Germany) until 1792.

Through Quebec, the British Crown retained access to the Ohio and Illinois Countries after the Treaty of Paris (1783) ceded control of this land to the United States. By well-established trade and military routes across the Great Lakes, the British continued to supply not only their troops but also the Western Confederacy (a wide alliance of indigenous nations) through Detroit, Fort Niagara, Fort Michilimackinac, and so on, until these posts were turned over to the United States following the Jay Treaty (1794).

Quebec retained its seigneurial system after the conquest. Owing to an influx of Loyalist refugees from the American Revolutionary War, the demographics of Quebec came to shift and now included a substantial English-speaking Protestant element from the former Thirteen Colonies. These United Empire Loyalists settled mainly in the Eastern Townships, Montreal, and what was known then as the Pays d'en Haut west of the Ottawa River. The Constitutional Act 1791 divided the colony in two at the Ottawa River, so that the western part (Upper Canada) could be under the English legal system, with English speakers in the majority. The eastern part was named Lower Canada.

In 1760, following the capitulation of Montreal, the colony was placed under military government, with civil government only instituted beginning in 1764. The following were the governors:

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