Although the fate of Quebec (Canada) was sealed in the 1759 British conquest, there was still a French army in the field in Canada at Montreal. French forces in New France would surrender formally in 1760. The Seven Years War raged on elsewhere, so Quebec was under military occupation until peace terms could be reached in 1763. France had prolonged the war in hopes of acquiring enemy territories to be used as bargaining chips in the eventual treaty negotiations -- this was a frequent tactic during this era.

The 1763 Treaty of Paris specified that Britain would acquire Canada from France and would return to France its profitable sugar colonies in Martinique and Guadaloupe, as well as returning to France its trading centres in India and what is now Senegal. France had the option to either keep Canada and cede Guadaloupe, or give up Canada and keep Guadaloupe. France's sugar colonies were immensely profitable, while it was costing France more to defend and administer Canada than the colony was earning in revenue.

France chose Guadaloupe. This left the some 70,000 French habitants in Quebec feeling abandoned, despite British assurances to guarantee their language, property and religious rights.

Having lost Acadia to Britain during the war, France also wanted to retain fishing rights near the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland and received the tiny islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon as unfortified fishing stations. These remain French to this day.

Britain also gained the Great Lakes basin, the east bank of the Mississippi River and Florida. A Proclamation Line was set forbidding white settlement west of the Appalachians and reserving this land as Indian Territory.

France granted Spain its Louisiana territory in the secret 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau.