‘The Irishman's Prize’: Views of Canada from the British Press, 1760–1774
This was how the Public Advertiser greeted the passage of the Quebec Act through parliament in June 1774. It was a remarkable transformation from the ecstasy evident in newspaper reports that greeted the fall of New France in 1760. As early as November 1759 the city of Nottingham singled out the North American campaign as the glorious core of British strategy. Its loyal address congratulated the king ‘particularly upon the defeat of the French army in Canada, and the taking of Quebec; an acquisition not less honourable to your majesty's forces, than destructive of the trade and commerce and power of France in North America’. What occurred in those fourteen years to produce such a stark revision of views on the conquest of New France? The answer can be found partly by surveying the English press for this period. During these years, treatment of Canadian issues in the press displayed quite distinct characteristics that revealed a whole range of attitudes and opinions on the place Canada held in the future of the North American empire. No consensus on this issue ever existed. Debate on Canada mirrored a wider discussion on the future of the polyglot empire acquired at the end of the Seven Years War in 1763. In ranged from the enthusiasm of officials at Westminster to spokesmen of a strain in English thinking that challenged the whole thrust of imperial policy to date.