Claims for compensation were made early. In the very year of the rebellion the Assembly of Upper Canada passed an Act appointing commissioners to inquire into the amount of damage done to the property of loyal citizens; and in the following year it voted a sum of £4000 to make good the losses. Men were paid for a cow driven off, or for an old musket commandeered. The Special Council of Lower Canada made similar provision, as was only natural and right; but its task was much harder than that of the Assembly's. Clearly, the property of loyalists destroyed or injured during the civil strife should be made good. This was mere justice. It was equally clear that the property of open rebels which had been destroyed or injured should _not_ be made good. But there was a third category not so easy to deal with. There were those who were not openly in rebellion, but who were grievously suspect of sympathy with declared insurgents of their own race and religion. How far sympathy might have become aid and comfort to opponents of the government was hard to say. The village of St Eustache, for example, was set on fire the night following the fight; the troops turned out in the bitter cold to fight the fire, { 115} but did not master it until some eighty houses were burned. What claim could the owners have upon the government for their losses? In the winter of 1838 the sky was red with the flames of burning hamlets, says the _Montreal Herald_.
The law's delay is proverbial. Compensatory legislation dragged its slow length along for years, and the loyalists who had suffered in their pocket saw session after session pass, and their claims still unsatisfied. In 1840 the Assembly of Upper Canada passed an Act authorizing the expenditure not of four thousand, but of forty thousand pounds, to indemnify the loyalists who had lost by the 'troubles.' However, as the Assembly, at the same time, forbore to provide any funds for the purpose, the Act remained with the force of a pious wish. The claimants for compensation were none the better for it. Then came the union of the Canadas. Five more years rolled away, and, in spite of the usual siege operations of those who have money claims against a government, nothing was done. The various barns and cows and muskets were still a dead loss. Then in 1845 the Tory administration of Draper put the necessary finishing touch to the quaker act of 1840 by { 116} providing the sum of money required. By drawing on the receipts from tavern licences collected in Upper Canada over a period of four years, the government was in the possession of £38,000 for this specific purpose. But, after the Union, it was manifestly unjust to pay rebellion losses, as they came to be known, in Upper Canada and not in Lower Canada. The Reformers of Lower Canada pointed out with emphasis the manifest injustice of such a proceeding. It therefore became necessary to extend the scope of the Act. Accordingly, in November 1845, a commission consisting of five persons was appointed to investigate the claims for 'indemnity for just losses sustained' during the rebellion in Lower Canada. This commission was instructed to distinguish between the loyal and the rebellious, but, in making this vital distinction, they were not to 'be guided by any other description of evidence than that furnished by the sentences of the courts of law.' The commission was also given to understand that its investigation was not to be final. It was to prepare only a 'general estimate' which would be subject to more particular scrutiny and revision. Appointed in the end of November 1845, the { 117} commission had finished its task and was ready to report in April 1846. Its 'general estimate' was a handsome total of more than £240,000; it gave as its opinion that £100,000 would cover all the 'just losses sustained.' Of the larger amount, it is said that £25,000 was claimed by those who had actually been convicted of treason by court-martial. Not unnaturally an outcry rose at once against taking public money to reward treason. The report could not very well be acted upon; and the government voted £10,000 to pay claims in Lower Canada which had been certified before the union of the provinces. Another delay of three years followed, until LaFontaine took the matter up in the session of 1849.