eace having provided that
'Creditors on either side should meet with no lawful impediment to the
recovery of the full value of their debts in sterling money,' losses of
this nature have not been considered as within the inquiry directed by
the Act, because we cannot consider any right or property as lost to the
party where the Government of the country has expressly provided and
stipulated for a remedy by a public treaty. We think it, however,
incumbent upon us to represent that the claimants uniformly state to us
the insuperable difficulties they find themselves under, as individuals,
in seeking the recovery of their debts according to the provision of the
treaty, whilst themselves are the objects of prosecution in courts of
justice here for debts due to the subjects of the United States. Under
such circumstances, the situation of this class of sufferers appears to
be singularly distressing--disabled on the one hand by the laws or
practice of the several States from recovering the debts due them, yet
compellable on the other to pay all demands against them; and though the
stipulation in the treaty in their favour has proved of no avail to
procure them the redress it holds out in one country, yet they find
themselves excluded by it from all claims to relief in the other."]

[Footnote 133: It is certain that but a small proportion of the American
Loyalists presented claims before the Parliamentary Commissioners in
England for compensation for services or loss of property; and many of
those who presented claims did not prosecute them. The Commissioners
give the following explanation on this point:

"It may, perhaps, appear singular that so many claims presented, viz.,
448, have been withdrawn; but it may be owing, in the first place, to
the circumstance of many of these claimants having recovered possession
of their estates, and, in the next place, to the uncertainty, at the
commencement of the inquiry, as to the nature of the Commission, and the
species of loss which was the object of it, and perhaps to the
consciousness of others that they were not able to establish the claims
they had presented."]

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE LOYALISTS DRIVEN FROM THE UNITED STATES TO THE BRITISH PROVINCES.

The Loyalists, after having been stripped of their rights and property
during the war, and driven from their homes, and hunted and killed at
pleasure, were exiled from all right of residence and citizenship at the
close of the