Formerly a French colony, Quebec had been ceded to Britain following the Seven Years' War and tensions between the predominantly Catholic colony and the Protestant British were rife. In an attempt to alleviate the prospect of rebellion in Quebec, the British government passed the Quebec Act in 1774. This legislation gave the colony certain protections, such as the freedom of Catholics to practise their faith and the restoration of French civil law where it did not contradict English law. A staunch Protestant, Francis Maseres, who had served as attorney general in Quebec between 1766 and 1769, fiercely opposed the settlement.

This book is a continuation of his 1775 work An account of the proceedings of the British and other Protestant inhabitants of the province of Quebeck. Written on behalf of British merchants active in the colony unhappy with the settlement, the work made recommendations to integrate Quebec more fully into the British empire. This included the revocation of the Quebec Act and replacing it with a new act that enforced English law, the establishment of a Protestant parliament and the redrawing of the provincial boundaries to those given in the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
The book also attempted to find a solution to the ongoing crisis in the thirteen American colonies to the south by recommending that the government ought to largely acquiesce to American grievances, recommending their representation in Parliament as soon as possible

Maseres failed in his endeavours to change the situation in Quebec and the province retains strong links to its French heritage. French also continues to be one of the two official languages of Canada.