Here’s another member of Parliament speaking out against changing the boundaries and government of Quebec, which was mostly populated by French Catholics and hadn’t been long under British control. George Johnstone, who had formerly been governor of the colony of West Florida (there were two Floridas at that time), said that he thought the Quebec Bill promoted the following ideas:
That a state of Slavery is better than a state of Freedom:
That the Popish Religion is better than the Protestant:
That Juries are unnecessary, and therefore to be disused:
That Monopolies are useful to Trade:
That French Laws and Commercial Regulations are preferable to English:
And that the Constitution which our ancestors had framed with so much wisdom, and established at the expense of so much blood and treasure, is to be destroyed by their wiser sons.
Ouch.
You may wonder why I’m bringing up Quebec again, but you can’t ignore it when studying the American Revolution. And the Quebec Bill in particular, coming as it did at the same time as the Intolerable Acts, and coinciding with fears and prejudices born of past wars with the French, was seen by many Americans as a tyrannical measure.
Source
American Archives, Series 4, Volume 2, page 204.