“for the suppression of the said rebellion or for the prevention of further disturbances.”  Funds were also voted out of the public revenues for the payment of indemnities to those who had met with the losses set forth in this legislation affecting Upper Canada.  It was, on the whole, a fair settlement of just claims in the western province.  The French Canadians in the legislature supported the measure, and urged with obvious reason that the same consideration should be shown to the same class of persons in Lower Canada.  It was not, however, until the session of 1845, when the Draper-Viger ministry was in office, that an address was passed to the governor-general, Lord Metcalfe, praying him to take such steps as were necessary “to insure to the inhabitants of that portion of this province, formerly Lower Canada, an indemnity for just losses suffered during the rebellions of 1837 and 1838.”  The immediate result was the appointment of commissioners to make inquiry into the losses sustained by “Her Majesty’s loyal subjects” in Lower Canada “during the late unfortunate rebellion.”  The commissioners found some difficulty in acting upon their instructions, which called upon them to distinguish the cases of those “who had joined, aided or abetted the said rebellion, from the cases of those who had not done so,” and they accordingly applied for definite advice from Lord Cathcart, whose advisers were still the Draper-Viger ministry.  The commissioners were officially informed that “it was his Excellency’s intention that they should be guided by no other description of evidence than that furnished by the sentences of the courts of law.”  They were further informed that it was only intended that they should form a general estimate of the rebellion losses, “the particulars of which must form the subject of more minute inquiry hereafter, under legislative authority.”

During the session of 1846 the commissioners made a report which gave a list of 2,176 persons who made claims amounting in the aggregate to L241,965.  At the same time the commissioners expressed the opinion that L100,000 would be adequate to satisfy all just demands, and directed attention to the fact that upwards of L25,503 were actually claimed by persons who had been condemned by a court-martial for their participation in the rebellion.  The report also set forth that the inquiry conducted by the commissioners had been necessarily imperfect in the absence of legal power to make a minute investigation, and that they had been compelled largely to trust to the allegations of the claimants who had laid their cases before them, and that it was only from data collected in this way that they had been able to come to conclusions as to the amount of losses.