d 'likely fellows' or 'incurably lazy'
and 'old worn-outs.'

Perhaps, when a slave wished to remain British, and his
case was nicely balanced between the claimants and the
counter-claimants, Carleton was a little inclined to give
him the benefit of the doubt. But with other forms of
disputed property he was too severe to please all Loyalists.
A typical case of restitution in Canada will show how
differently the two governments viewed the rights of
private property. Mercier and Halsted, two Quebec rebels,
owned a wharf and the frame of a warehouse in 1775. It
was Arnold's intercepted letter to Mercier that gave
Carleton's lieutenant, Cramahe, the first warning of
danger from the south. Halsted was Major Caldwell's miller
at the time and took advantage of his position to give
his employer's flour to Arnold's army, in which he served
as commissary throughout the siege. Just after the peace
of 1783 Mercier and Halsted laid claim to their former
property, which they had abandoned for eight years and
on which the government had meanwhile built a provision
store, making use of the original frame. The case was
complicated by many details too long for notice here.
But the British government finally gave the two rebels
the original property, plus thirteen years' rent, less
the cost of government works erected in the meantime.
All the documents are still in Quebec.

Property was troublesome enough. But people were worse.
And Carleton's difficulties increased as the autumn wore
on. The first great harrying of the Loyalists drove more
than thirty thousand from their homes; and about twenty-five
thousand of these embarked at New York. Then there were
the remnants of twenty Loyalist corps to pension, settle,
or employ. There were also the British prisoners to
receive, besides ten thousand German mercenaries. Add to
all this the regular garrison and the general oversight
of every British interest in North America, from the
Floridas to Labrador, remember the implacable enemy in
front, and we may faintly imagine what Carleton had to
do before he could report that 'His Majesty's troops and
such remaining Loyalists as chose to emigrate were
successfully withdrawn on the 25th [of November] without
the smallest circumstance of irregularity.'

Thus ended one of the greatest acts in the drama of the
British Empire, the English-speaking peoples, or the
world; and thus, for the second time, Carleton, now in
his sixtieth year, apparent