Talk:Letters to the inhabitants of Canada

Spelling question
Re: Lettre adressée aux habitans de la province de Québec: should that be habitants? --Saforrest 07:52, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Check French version and English version the biography of Fleury Mesplet and it's listed the same the is a Canadian Government web site and not a Wikipedia mirror. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 08:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Habitans is an old spelling of the current French word habitants. -- Mathieugp 15:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Three different letters
There are in fact three different letters that were sent to Quebec. The one dated May 29, 1775 (and printed in the Pennsylvania Packet, 19 June, 1775) would be the last one. A first one, long of 7 pages, was sent in 1774 by the First Continental Congress held in Philadelphia. In is in this one that the Congress explains what the struggle is about and in this one also that we find the quote from Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws. I am not certain about the second letter, but I believe it came from the Second Continental Congress. -- Mathieugp 20:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It took me a while to find it, but here is an on line copy of the first letter, dated 26 Oct 1774:

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch14s12.html


 * That is the one which was translated as Lettre aux habitans de la Province de Quebec, ci-devant le Canada, de la part du Congrès général de l'Amérique Septentrionale, tenu à Philadelphie. (Literally "Letter to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec, formerly Canada, from the General Congress of Septentrional America, held in Philadephia.") -- Mathieugp 17:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)