After the French surrender, Amherst named Gage the military
Governor of Montreal, a task Gage found somewhat thankless, because it involved the minute details of municipal governance along with the administration of the military occupation. He was also forced to deal with civil litigation, and manage trade with the
First Nations in the Great Lakes region, where traders disputed territorial claims, and quarrelled with the
First Nations. Margaret came to stay with him in Montreal and that is where his first two children, Harry, the future
3rd Viscount Gage, and Maria Theresa, were born. In 1761, he was promoted to major general, and in 1762, again with the assistance of his brother, was placed in command of the
22nd Regiment, which assured a command even in peacetime. By all accounts, Gage appeared to be a fair administrator, respecting people's lives and property, although he had a healthy distrust of the landowning
seigneurs and of the Roman Catholic clergy, who he viewed as intriguers for the French. When peace was announced following the 1763
Treaty of Paris, Gage began lobbying for another posting, as he was "very much [tired] of this cursed Climate, and I must be bribed very high to stay here any longer".
Pontiac's War Following the conquest of New France, Amherst, who had little respect for the
First Nations, instituted policies that severely hampered Anglo-Indian relations, principally forbidding the sale of ammunition to them. Combined with widespread concern about British expansion into their territories, this prompted the tribes of the Ohio Country and the formerly French ''
Pays d'en Haut'' to rise against the British. In May 1763, under the leadership of the
Odawa leader
Pontiac, they launched a series of attacks on lightly garrisoned British frontier forts, successfully driving the British from some, threatening others, and also terrorising British settlers in those areas. by
John Mix Stanley. No authentic images of the chief are known to exist. Hoping to end the conflict diplomatically, Gage ordered Colonel
John Bradstreet and Colonel
Henry Bouquet out on military expeditions and also ordered
Sir William Johnson to engage in peace negotiations. Johnson negotiated the
Treaty of Fort Niagara in the summer of 1764 with some of the disaffected tribes, and Colonel Bouquet negotiated a cease-fire of sorts in October 1764, which resulted in another peace treaty finalised by Johnson in 1765. In 1765, the
42nd Regiment of Foot finally got through to
Fort Cavendish, the last fort still in French hands. The conflict was not fully resolved until Pontiac himself travelled to
Fort Ontario and signed a formal treaty with Johnson in July 1766.
Securing his position When General Amherst left North America in 1763, it was on a leave of absence from his position as commander-in-chief. In 1764, Amherst announced that he had no intention of returning to North America, at which point Gage's appointment to that post was made permanent. (Amherst retained posts as governor of Virginia and colonel of the 60th Foot, positions he only gave up in 1768 when he was required to actually go to Virginia or give up the post.) Intrigues of other high-ranking officers, especially
Robert Monckton and his supporters, for his offices, continued throughout his tenure as commander-in-chief. Gage was promoted to lieutenant general in 1771. In 1767 Gage ordered the arrest of Major
Robert Rogers, the former leader of
Rogers' Rangers who Gage had come to dislike and distrust during the war. The arrest was based on flimsy evidence that Rogers might have been engaging in a treasonous relationship with the French; he was acquitted in a 1768 court martial. Gage spent most of his time as commander-in-chief, the most powerful office in
British America, in and around New York City. Although Gage was burdened by the administrative demands of managing a territory that spanned the entirety of North America east of the
Mississippi River, the Gages clearly relished life in New York, actively participating in the social scene. One way he did this was by joining the
American Philosophical Society in 1768 through his election. Although his position gave him the opportunity to make financial arrangements that might have lined the pockets of high-ranking officers at the expense of the military purse, there is little evidence that he engaged in any significant improper transactions. In addition to the handsome sum of £10 per day as commander-in-chief, he received a variety of other stipends, including his colonel's salary, given for leading his regiment. These funds made it possible to send all of the Gage children (at least six of whom survived to adulthood) to school in England. If Gage did not dip his hand unnecessarily in the public till, he did engage in the relatively common practices of
nepotism and political favouritism. In addition to securing advantageous positions for several people named Gage or Kemble, he also apparently assisted in the placement of some of his friends and political supporters, or their children.
Rising colonial tension During Gage's administration, political tensions rose throughout the American colonies. As a result, Gage began withdrawing troops from the frontier to fortify urban centres like New York City and Boston. As the number of soldiers stationed in cities grew, the need to provide adequate food and housing for these troops became urgent.
Parliament passed the
Quartering Act of 1765, permitting British troops to be quartered in vacant houses, barns, and outbuildings, but not private residences. Gage's thoughts on the reasons for colonial unrest played an important role in furthering the unrest. He at first believed that the popular unrest after the 1765
Stamp Act was primarily due to a small number of colonial elites, led by those in Boston. In 1768 he recommended the deployment of two regiments to occupy Boston, a move that further inflamed the city. Among the troops quartered in the city was the
29th Regiment of Foot, which had previously clashed with colonists in Quebec and New York, and had a reputation for poor discipline. This occupation eventually led to the
Boston Massacre in 1770. Later that year he wrote that "America is a mere bully, from one end to the other, and the Bostonians by far the greatest bullies." Gage later came to change his opinion about the source of the unrest, believing that
democracy was a significant threat. He saw the movement of colonists into the interior, beyond effective Crown control, and the development of the
town meeting as a means of local governance, as major elements of the threat, and wrote in 1772 that "democracy is too prevalent in America". He believed that town meetings should be abolished and recommended that colonisation should be limited to the coastal areas where British rule could be enforced. ==Governor of Massachusetts Bay==