Royal Proclamation

Royal Proclamation of 7th October, 1763.

BY THE KING

Royal Proclamation

GEORGE R.

Whereas we have taken into our Royal consideration the extensive and valuable acquisitions in America, secured to our Crown by the late definitive treaty of peace concluded at Paris the tenth day of February last; and being desirous that all our loving subjects, as well of our kingdom as of our colonies in America, may avail themselves with all convenient speed of the great benefits and advantages which must accrue therefrom to their commerce, manufactures, and navigation; we have thought fit, with the advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our Royal Proclamation, hereby to publish and declare to all our loving subjects, that we have, with the advice of our said Privy Council, granted our letters patent under our Great Seal of Great Britain, to erect within the countries and islands ceded and confirmed to us by the said treaty, four distinct and separate governments, styled and called by the names of QUEBEC, EAST FLORIDA, WEST FLORIDA, and GRENADA, and limited and bounded as follows, viz.:

Firstly.--The Government of QUEBEC, bounded on the Labrador Coast by the River St. John, and from thence by a line drawn from the head of that river, through the lake St. John, to the south end of the Lake Nipissin; from whence the said line, crossing the River St. Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain in forty-five degrees of north latitude, passes along the high lands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the said River St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the sea; and also along the north coast of the Baye des Chaleurs, and the coast of the Gulph of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosieres, and from thence crossing the mouth of the River St. Lawrence by the west end of the Island of Anticosti, terminates at the aforesaid River St. John.

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And to the end that the open and free fishery of our subjects may be extended to and carried on upon the coast of Labrador, and the adjacent islands, we have thought fit, with the advice of our said Privy Council, to put all that coast, from the River St. John's to Hudson's Streights, together with the islands of Anticosti and the Madelaine, and all other smaller islands lying upon the said coast, under the care and inspection of our Governor of Newfoundland.

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Given at our Court, at St. James's, in the seventh day of October, one thousand seven hundred and sixty-three, in the third year of our Reign.

GOD SAVE THE KING.

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