16mo, 40 pp., bound in original wall paper covered boards, ex-library, bookplate and hand-stamps, else a very good copy. Second edition, printed for and on the account of the Seminary of St. Sulpice. Possibly the first book printed in Montreal. A previous edition, without imprint is said to have been prepared by Mesplet in Philadelphia, it is also said to have been printed in Montreal.

Fleury Mesplet was born about 1735 in St. Nizier, France. He engaged in printing and moved, probably in 1773, to London, where he met Benjamin Franklin who encouraged him to migrate to Philadelphia. In 1776 he was commissioned by the Continental Congress to accompany its commissioners, Franklin, Chase and Carroll, to Montreal to establish there a French press. He moved his equipment from Philadelphia, the journey occupying from March 18 to May 6, 1776. When the Americans evacuated Montreal in June 1776, Mesplet, financially embarrassed, remained behind and issued soon afterwards the present item. His press the first in Montreal, he continued to operate through economic and political vicissitudes till his death in 1794. He is credited with at least 70 books, pamphlets, etc., including the Montreal Gazette, which he founded in 1785 and which still appears (R. W. McLachlan: Fleury Mesplet, the first printer at Montreal, in the Royal Society of Canada's Transactions, 1906, ser. 2, v. 12, section 2; also: Aegidius Fauteaux, Fleury Mesplet, in the American Bibliographical Society's Papers, 1934, v. 28, pt. 2, p. 164-193).  TPL 482; Lande 153