Letters to the inhabitants of Canada

The Letters to the inhabitants of Canada were three letters written by the First and Second Continental Congresses in 1774, 1775, and 1776 to communicate directly with the population of the Province of Quebec, formerly the French province of Canada, which had no representative system at the time. Their purpose was to draw the large French-speaking population to the American revolutionary cause. This goal ultimately failed, and Quebec, along with the other northern provinces of British America, remained in British hands. The only significant assistance that was gained was the recruitment of two regiments totalling not more than 1,000 men.

The acquisition of the Province of Quebec as a result of the French and Indian War (1754–1763) gave Great Britain control over the entire eastern seaboard of North America, and brought the former French colony of Canada into a closer relationship with the American colonies. The new province was significantly different than the other provinces of British America, as the vast majority of people in Quebec spoke only French and were Roman Catholic. There were also differences in civic and legal affairs, as the law had, prior to the British conquest, been based on French law.

In 1774, the British Parliament enacted the Quebec Act, along with other legislation that was labeled by American colonists as the Intolerable Acts. This measure, which replaced the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as the governing document of Quebec, was used to fortify the position of the British in Quebec by guaranteeing (among other things) the rights of French Canadians to practice Roman Catholicism. It is largely perceived by historians to be damage control in the province of Quebec, in order to prevent the French Canadians from joining the independence movement in the American colonies. The American colonists interpreted the religious provisions concerning Catholicism as a wedge by which Catholicism might be introduced into all of the colonies, and other provisions concerning the structure of the Quebec government to be an attempt by the British Parliament to assert more control over the province, and deny its people what many considered to be basic rights.

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