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 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.