and Virginia, and carried off a number of women and children to their wigwams.  Fort Pitt at the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers—­the site of the present city of Pittsburg—­was in serious peril for a time, until Colonel Bouquet, a brave and skilful officer, won a signal victory over the Indians, who fled in dismay to their forest fastnesses.  Pontiac failed to capture Detroit, and Bouquet followed up his first success by a direct march into the country of the Shawnees, Mingoes and Delawares, and forced them to agree to stern conditions of peace on the banks of the Muskingum.  The power of the western Indians was broken for the time, and the British in 1765 took possession of the French forts of Chartres and Vincennes, when the fleur-de-lys disappeared for ever from the valley of the Mississippi.  The French settlers on the Illinois and the Mississippi preferred to remain under British rule rather than cross the great river and become subjects of Spain, to whom Western Louisiana had been ceded by France.  From this time forward France ceased to be an influential factor in the affairs of Canada or New France, and the Indian tribes recognized the fact that they could no longer expect any favour or aid from their old ally.  They therefore transferred their friendship to England, whose power they had felt in the Ohio valley, and whose policy was now framed with a special regard to their just treatment.

This Indian war was still in progress when King George III issued his proclamation for the temporary government of his new dependencies in North America.  As a matter of fact, though the proclamation was issued in England on the 7th October, 1763, it did not reach Canada and come into effect until the 10th August, 1764.  The four governments of Quebec, Grenada, East Florida, and West Florida were established in the territories ceded by France and Spain.  The eastern limit of the province of Quebec did not extend beyond St. John’s River at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, nearly opposite to Anticosti, while that island itself and the Labrador country, east of the St. John’s as far as the Straits of Hudson, were placed under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland.  The islands of Cape Breton and St. John, now Prince Edward, became subject to the Government of Nova Scotia, which then included the present province of New Brunswick.  The northern limit of the province did not extend beyond the territory known as Rupert’s Land under the charter given to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670, while the western boundary was drawn obliquely from Lake Nipissing as far as Lake St. Francis on the St. Lawrence; the southern boundary then followed line 45 deg. across the upper part of Lake Champlain, whence it passed along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence from those that flow into the sea—­an absurdly defined boundary since it gave to Canada as far as Cape Rosier on the Gaspe peninsula a territory only