The total number of claimants was 5,072, of whom 924 withdrew or failed to make good the claim. The sum of money allowed was £3,294,452. We have seen there was, in addition, given to the widows and orphans, between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds.
There is no doubt that a certain number of the claimants were impostors, while many asked remuneration above what their losses had actually been, and this caused the commissioners to examine more closely the claims proffered. But it is submitted that they ought, in dealing with the money already granted by a considerate Parliament, to have leaned on the side of clemency.
At the close of the contest there were a large number of Refugees in Lower Canada, especially at Fort St. John, about twenty-nine miles from Montreal. In the main these were American born, and principally from the New England States; yet there were representatives from England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany. Besides the Refugees, there were several Provincial Corps, which were no longer to be retained in the service, but to be disbanded. Of these there was the 84th, often called Johnson’s regiment, this was 800 strong, mostly Dutch, from the Mohawk, and Hudson, descendants of the old stock. This regiment consisted of two corps, one under Major Jessup, stationed at St. John’s, and the other under Rogers, a part of which at least, was stationed at Fort Oswego. Jessup’s corps became the first pioneers upon the St. Lawrence, and Rogers among the first along the Bay of Quinté. Both settled in 1784. There were other troops stationed at St. John’s, and likewise not a few who had discharged irregular, but important duties, as scouts, and in other ways.
It has been generally estimated that at the close of the struggle, and as a result, there were distributed of American Loyalists upon the shores of Canada, about 10,000. At the first, most of these were in Lower Canada, but there were likewise a few at the frontier forts upon the Upper waters, and a few detached squatters. Then, “there was not a single tree cut from the (present) Lower Province line to Kingston, 150 miles; and at Kingston there were but a few surrounding huts; and from thence all around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, with the exception of a few Indian huts on some desolate spot of hunting ground, all was a dense wilderness.” (Ex Sheriff Sherwood.)