The loyalists of America and their times

by Egerton Ryerson

The Commissioners proceeded in the same manner with their investigations, and with about the same results, in 1786 and 1787.[127]

On the 5th of April, 1788, the Commissioners reported that they had examined into and declared upon 1,680 claims, and had allowed the sum of £1,887,548 for their payment.

Under all the circumstances, it appears scarcely possible that the Commissioners could have proceeded with more despatch than they did. But the delay caused much dissatisfaction among the Loyalists, whose agents petitioned both King and Parliament on the delay, or on the course pursued by the Commissioners, or on some subject connected with the claims of the Loyalists. Essays and tracts were published; letters and communications appeared in the newspapers on the subject; in 1786, the agents of the Loyalists presented a petition to Parliament, which contained among other things the following touching words: "It is impossible to describe the poignant distress under which many of these persons now labour, and which must daily increase should the justice of Parliament be delayed until all the claims are liquidated and reported; * * ten years have elapsed since many of them have been deprived of their fortunes, and with their helpless families reduced from independent affluence to poverty and want; some of them now languishing in British jails; others indebted to their creditors, who have lent them money barely to support their existence, and who, unless speedily relieved, must sink more than the value of their claims when received, and be in a worse condition than if they had never made them; others have already sunk under the pressure and severity of their misfortunes; and others must, in all probability, soon meet the same melancholy fate, should the justice due them be longer postponed. But, on the contrary, should provision be now made for payment of those whose claims have been settled and reported, it will not only relieve them from their distress, but give credit to others whose claims remain to be considered, and enable all of them to provide for their wretched families, and become again useful members of society."

Two years later, in 1788, a tract was published by a Loyalist, entitled "The Claim of the American Loyalists Reviewed and Maintained upon Incontrovertible Principles of Law and Justice." The writer of that tract thus forcibly states the situation of the Loyalists: "It is well known that this delay of justice has produced the most melancholy and shocking events. A number of sufferers have been driven into insanity and become their own destroyers, leaving behind them their helpless widows and orphans to subsist upon the cold charity of strangers. Others have been sent to cultivate the wilderness for their subsistence, without having the means, and compelled through want to throw themselves on the mercy of the American States, and the charity of former friends, to support the life which might have been made comfortable by the money long since due by the British Government; and many others with their families are barely subsisting upon a temporary allowance from Government, a mere pittance when compared with the sum due them."

Shortly after the publication of the pamphlet containing these statements, the Commissioners submitted their eleventh report, April, 1788, and Mr. Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, yielded the following month to the pressing entreaties of the claimants to allow their grievances to be discussed in Parliament. "Twelve years had elapsed since the property of most of them had been alienated under the Confiscation Acts, and five since their title to recompense had been recognized by the law under which their claims had been presented and disposed of."

We will give an abridged account of the proceedings in Parliament and by the Commissioners in their own words:

"The business came on in the House of Commons on the 6th of June, 1788, which Mr. Pitt opened in a very handsome and eloquent speech respecting the merits of the American Loyalists, and which, he did not doubt, would meet with the unanimous acknowledgment of the House; and he trusted, therefore, there would be no difference of opinion as to the principle, though there might be as to the mode of compensation and the distribution which he thought it his duty to propose.

"The first principle he laid down was, that however strong their claims might be on the generosity of the nation, the compensation could not be considered as a matter of right and strict justice;[129] in the mode, therefore, he had pursued, he had marked the principle in the various quotas of compensation he should propose to be made to the various classes of the American Loyalists.

"He considered the three first classes of them, stated by the Commissioners in their reports as the most meritorious, and who were likewise the most numerous, viz.:

"1st. Loyalists who had rendered services to Great Britain. Number, 204.