in defiance of guards placed to protect property.”  Thus writes Lord Seaton.  Colonel Hanson, after quoting the above, proceeds to state that the evidence before the commissioners proves that “immediately after Lieut.-Col.  Townsend assembled his regiment for the purpose of marching back to Montreal, the volunteers from the northern townships commenced plundering the village, carrying off the whole of the effects belonging to the inhabitants, burning the church, and nearly every house in the village ... wilfully and wantonly destroying houses, and in many instances burning valuable barns and granaries....  Therefore I humbly pretend that every such individual who thus suffered should be indemnified, as his loss was a wanton destruction of the dwellings, buildings, property, and effects of the said inhabitants.”  Yet such was the jealous way in which the commissioners excluded all doubtful claimants, that Colonel Hanson found himself in a minority upon the consideration of the foregoing claims, and, as a man of honour and anxious for justice, felt it his duty to address a letter to the Governor-General upon the subject, from which letter, bearing date January, 1852, the foregoing extracts have been taken.

I have very many of such complaints of justice being withheld from claimants, in the opinion of the gallant colonel, now lying before me, but “ex uno disce omnes.”  I have read a great portion of the Report, and the conclusion is irresistibly forced upon my mind, that everything which could possibly be brought to assume the slightest shade of rebellion was made fatal to an applicant’s claim; but if anything were wanting to satisfy my mind that the vilifiers of the “Losses Bill” had not any ground of complaint against the measure, it would be found in the fact, that among its various opponents to whom I spoke, they one and all exclaimed, “Look at the case of Nelson, absolutely a rebel in arms, and his claims listened to!” This was their invariable reply; and, until I made inquiry, it looked very bad.  But what was the real state of the case?  Simply that Nelson, having been ruined by his rebellion, many loyal and faithful subjects to whom he owed debts suffered for his faults; and the money awarded for the losses sustained by the rebel went to pay the loyal debtors, except a small portion which was granted to his wife, who was well known to be strongly opposed to the course he had pursued, and who had lost considerable property which she held in her own right.  I say that the fact of Nelson’s case being always brought up as the great enormity carried more conviction to my mind of the utter weakness of the opponents’ cause than anything else; and it also proved to me how ignorant many of them were of the truth, for several of them who vilified the Bill, the Government, and the Governor-General, had not the slightest idea, till I informed them, how the Nelson award was applied.