Collection search - Collection of reports on the laws and courts of judicature in the province of Quebec [textual record]

Duplicate copies of the reports were eventually discovered at the British Museum in King's MSS. 207, as a result of the note found in the papers of the Colonial Office (MG 11, C.O. 42, volume 14, page 15) by the constitutional historian William Paul McClure Kennedy (1879-1963), which states that the duplicates had been "bound up for the King's own use." Kennedy's note on the subject is with the typescript copy that was made for the National Archives of Canada in 1930., The King's Manuscripts are a manuscript collection formed mainly by the purchases of George III and by gifts made to him. The collection was presented to the British nation in 1823 by George IV. It was deposited in the British Museum (now the British Library), where it is kept as a separate collection, numbered as King's MSS. 1-446, although it is catalogued and indexed together with the collections of George III's predecessors on the throne, known as the Royal or Old Royal collection.

Receipt of the three reports was acknowledged by Hillsborough in his letter of 18 January 1770 to Carleton. For many years diligent searches for these documents proved unavailing. The text of Maseres' dissenting report published by Shortt and Doughty (op. cit., pages 370-376) derived from Maseres' publication of A collection of several commissions and other public instruments relating to the province of Quebeck (London: 1770)., With the second report, Carleton also sent Chief Justice William Hey's report on the points in which he dissented from Carleton's views, and Attorney General Francis Maseres' dissentient report (see Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791, edited by Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty (Ottawa, 1918), Volume 1, pages 327-370).

Originals with the British Library, London, England.

One document has been digitized. It is included in point 3) of the description: report of Chief Justice William Hey, 15 September 1769 (12 pages).