have been ever admitted to this executive body. The English residents
ignored the French as far as possible, and made the most unwarrantable
claims to rule the whole province.

A close study of official documents from 1764 until 1774 goes to show
that all this while the British government was influenced by an anxious
desire to show every justice to French Canada, and to adopt a system of
government most conducive to its best interests In 1767 Lord Shelburne
wrote to Sir Guy Carleton that "the improvement of the civil
constitution of the province was under their most serious
consideration." They were desirous of obtaining all information "which
can tend to elucidate how far it is practicable and expedient to blend
the English with the French laws, in order to form such a system as
shall be at once equitable and convenient for His Majesty's old and new
subjects." From time to time the points at issue were referred to the
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