made by individuals for the benefit and accommodation of
others shall be equally sustained by all those who partake of it,' and
numerous cases are cited from Puffendorf, Burlamaqui and Vattel, to show
that the 'sacrifices' of the Loyalists were embraced in this principle.
As a further ground of claim, it is stated that in case of territory
alienated or ceded away by one sovereign power to another, the rule is
still applicable; for that in the treaties of international law it is
held, 'The State ought to indemnify the subject for the loss he has
sustained beyond his proportion.' And in the course pursued at the close
of the civil war in Spain, when the States of Holland obtained their
independence, under the Treaty of Utrecht, and at various other periods,
proved that the _rights_ of persons similarly situated had been
respected and held inviolate. The conclusion arrived at from the
precedents in history, and diplomacy, and in the statute-books of the
realm, is, that as the Loyalists were as 'perfectly subjects of the
British State as any man in London or Middlesex, they were entitled to
the same protection and relief.' The claimants had been 'called by their
sovereign, when surrounded by tumult and rebellion, to defend the
supreme rights of the nation, and to assist in suppressing a rebellion
which aimed at their destruction. They have received from the highest
authority the most solemn assurances of protection, and even reward, for
their meritorious services;' and that 'His Majesty and the two Houses of
Parliament having thought it necessary, as the _price of peace_, or to
the interest and safety of the empire, or from some other motive of
public convenience, to ratify the Independence of America, _without
securing any restitution whatever to the Loyalists_, they conceive that
the nation is bound, as well by the fundamental laws of society as by
the invariable and external principles of natural justice, to make them
compensation.'"[125]

Though the treaty of peace left the Loyalists to the mercy--rather to
the resentment (as the result proved)--of the American States, and as
such received the censure of the House of Commons, British justice and
honour recognized the claims of the Loyalists to compensation for their
losses, as well as to gratitude for their fidelity to the unity of the
empire. The King, at the opening of the session of Parliament, said: "I
have ordered inquiry to be made into the application of the sum t