f its
separate Parliament; in Lower Canada, by an ordinance of the 'Special
Council' under which it was at that time administered. But it was felt that
this was not enough; that where property had been wantonly and
unnecessarily destroyed, even though it were by persons acting in support
of authority, some compensation ought to be given; and the Upper Canada Act
above mentioned was amended next year, in the first session of the United
Parliament, so as to extend to all losses occasioned by violence on the
part of persons acting or assuming to act on Her Majesty's behalf. Nothing
was done at this time about Lower Canada; but it was obviously inevitable
that the treatment applied to the one province should be extended to the
other. Accordingly, in 1845, during Lord Metcalfe's Government, and under a
Conservative Administration, an Address was adopted unanimously by the
Assembly, praying His Excellency to cause proper measures to be taken 'in
order to insure to the inhabitants of that portion of the province,
formerly Lower Canada, indemnity for just losses by them sustained during
the Rebellion of 1837 and 1838.'

In pursuance of this address, a Commission was appointed to inquire into
the claims of persons whose property had been destroyed in the rebellion;
the Commissioners receiving instructions to distinguish the cases of those
persons who had joined, aided, or abetted in the said rebellion, from the
case of those who had not. On inquiring how they were to distinguish, they
were officially answered that in making out the classification 'it was not
His Excellency's intention that they should be guided by any other
description of evidence than that furnished by the sentences of the Courts
of Law.' It was also intimated to them that they were only intended to form
a 'general estimate' of the rebellion losses, 'the particulars of which
must form the subject of more minute inquiry hereafter under legislative
authority.'

In obedience to these instructions, the Commissioners made their
investigations, and reported that they had recognised, as worthy of further
inquiry, claims representing a sum total of 241,965_l_. 10_s_.
5_d_., but they added an expression of opinion that the losses
suffered would be found, on closer examination, not to exceed the value of
100,000_l_.

This Report was rendered in April 1846; but though Lord Metcalfe's Ministry
which had issued the Commission, avowedly as preliminary to a subsequent
and