On offer is the signature of F. Maseres, dated July 13 1801, torn from a larger document. The piece is mounted on a page leaf torn from its source, with some handwritten notes about Maseres in a different hand. Francis Maseres was an English lawyer. He is known as Attorney General of the Province of Quebec, judge, mathematician, historian, member of the Royal Society, and cursitor baron of the exchequer. On 4 March 1766, he was appointed Attorney General of the new British Province of Quebec, the former French Canada conquered in 1760 and definitively ceded by France through the Treaty of Paris in 1763. He was sworn in office on 26 September 1766 and exercised his functions until the autumn of 1769. In March 1768, the Carleton government requested he report on the reform of the province's law system. Maseres submitted his report in February 1769. He returned to England, but remained involved in the movement for a constitutional reform of Quebec, which resumed at full speed with the end of the American War of independence in 1783, and which was concluded with the adoption of the Constitutional Act of 1791 by the British Parliament. This item is roughly 4 x 2 inches and is age-toned. Good condition.
