law officers of the crown for their opinion, so anxious was the
government to come to a just conclusion. Attorney-General Yorke and
Solicitor-General De Grey in 1766 severely condemned any system that
would permanently "impose new, unnecessary and arbitrary rules
(especially as to the titles of land, and the mode of descent,
alienation and settlement), which would tend to confound and subvert
rights instead of supporting them." In 1772 and 1773 Attorney-General
Thurlow and Solicitor-General Wedderburne dwelt on the necessity of
dealing on principles of justice with the province of Quebec. The French
Canadians, said the former, "seem to have been strictly entitled by the
_jus gentium_ to their property, as they possessed it upon the
capitulation and treaty of peace, together with all its qualities and
incidents by tenure or otherwise." It seemed a necessary consequence
that all those laws by which that property was created, defined, and
secured, must be continued to them. The Advocate-General Marriott, in
1773, also made a number of valuable suggestions in the same spirit, and
at the same time expressed the opinion that under the existent
conditions of the country it was not possible or expedient to call an
assembly. Before the imperial government came to a positive conclusion
on the vexed questions before it, they had the advantage of the wise
experience of Sir Guy Carleton, who visited England and remained there
for some time. The result of the deliberation of years was the passage
through the British parliament of the measure known as "The Quebec Act,"
which has always been considered the charter of the special privileges
which the French Canadians have enjoyed ever since, and which, in the
course of a century, made their province one of the most influential
sections of British North America.

The preamble of the Quebec Act fixed new territorial limits for the
province. It comprised not only the country affected by the proclamation