Q

Quebec Act of 1774
Legislation by the British Parliament that granted reli-
gious toleration to the French CATHOLICpopulation in
Canada. This act precipitated the American Revolution
and an independent United States because the North
American Protestant Christians (especially New Eng-
land PURITANS) saw it as exemplifying British corrup-
tion, compromise, and TYRANNY. Fear that Britain
would next impose the Anglican or Catholic system on
the REPUBLICAN and free churches of America con-
tributed greatly to the fervor for national independ-
ence. Along with other British imperial policies in the
1760s and 1770s (such as increased taxation without
representation, military occupation, political usurpa-
tion), the Quebec Act symbolized the corruption and
evil of the British Empire, from the American colonists’
CLASSICAL REPUBLICANperspective.
The act formally recognized the Catholic Church
HIERARCHYand its legal right to collect tithes and edu-
cate priests, established French civil law, and extended
Quebec’s political jurisdiction into the territory
between the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. This
threatened the territorial integrity of the New England
settlements, causing massive resistance among the
British colonials to the empire. It may have been the
decisive factor that pushed a majority of Americans to

political independence and the Revolution of 1776

because it combined a political, religious, and eco-

nomic threat to the North American English Colonists.

See the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Quesnay, François (1694–1774) French econo-

mist and leader of the physiocrats

François Quesnay was the founder and leader of the

physiocratic school of economics who formulated an

economic system that emphasized the importance of

agriculture and land, as well as of free trade. Quesnay

was the court physician for Louis XV and influenced

not only French politics, but also the later work of

economists such as Adam Smith.

Quesnay was born in Merey and studied medicine

at Paris, served as a court physician, and eventually

became the personal physician of Louis XV. Quesnay

did not actually begin to study economics until his

later years. In 1756, he wrote a series of articles for

Diderot’s Encyclopédie. Quesnay’s essays included

“Farmers” and “Grains,” but his chief essay was the

Tableau Économique(Economic Table), which was pub-

lished in 1758 and translated into English in 1766.

The Economic Tableexerted a significant influence on

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