— 136 — 



members of both houses of Parliament would come to 

 him for advice. George III sent him to Quebec, in 

 1766 as attorney-general to replace George Suckling, 

 who had succeeded J. A. Cugnet, an eminent French 

 barrister. In 1765 the proclamation of the Stamp Act 

 had set all New England in a blaze. Maseres rendered 

 at this juncture, by his writings, good service to 

 England ; he was subsequently made Cursitor Baron of 

 the Exchequer. 



" The most important (1) matter with which Maseres was 

 connected during the three years that he lived in Quebec 

 was the famous law-suit of Walker, of Montreal. As Attorney- 

 General he represented the crown in that cause, which at 

 that time made so much noise, and which Maseres relates 

 with many details in his volume, bearing as title, " Additional 

 Papers," published in 1776. Apart from his first "Plan of 

 act of Parliament ", which he had printed in London before 

 leaving for Canada in 1766, all his writings concerning Canada 

 were not published until after his return to England, which 

 took place late in the autumn of 1769, although it seems 

 very probable that the greater part of his studies were pre- 

 pared during his stay in Quebec. Thus his public work in 

 1772, having as a title, " Plan of a General Assembly of the 

 Freeholders of the Province of Quebec ", was written at 

 Quebec in 1767, as is indicated by a note written by Maseres 

 himself, in a copy of this pamphlet which I have met with. 

 In this work he suggests the establishment of a House of 

 Assembly, of which all the lords of the province shall be 

 members, with an equal number of tree-holders, that is to say 

 that a person shall be elected by the free-holders of each 

 seigniory to represent the interest of these in the House of 

 Assembly. He proposed also to give to the cities of Quebec 

 and Montreal the right to elect each two representatives and 

 to Three-Rivers, one, to further in this assembly the commer- 

 cial interests of Canada. He calculates that by this manner 

 of election, the representation will be composed of about two 

 hundred and sixty members. The assembly will met every 

 year at a fixed time. Notwithstanding his animosity against 

 the Catholics, he cannot avoid recommending in this scheme 

 that the famous test oath should no longer be exacted from 

 Catholics, and that another should be substituted which 

 would be less offensive. 



(1) Biographical Notes on Baron Maseres, Phileas Gagnon, 

 1891. 



