several times to renew the act under which it was appointed;
and not until 1790 was the long inquiry brought to an
end. It was intended at first that the claims of the men
in the Loyalist regiments should be sent in through their
officers; and Sir John Johnson, for instance, was asked
to transmit the claims of the Loyalists settled in Canada.
But it was found that this method did not provide sufficient
guarantee against fraudulent and exorbitant claims; and
eventually members of the commission were compelled to
go in person to New York, Nova Scotia, and Canada.

The delay in concluding the work of the commission caused
great indignation. A tract which appeared in London in
1788 entitled _The Claim of the American Loyalists Reviewed
and Maintained upon Incontrovertible Principles of Law
and Justice_ drew a black picture of the results of the
delay:

It is well known that this delay of justice has produced
the most melancholy and shocking events. A number of
sufferers have been driven into insanity and become
their own destroyers, leaving behind them their helpless
widows and orphans to subsist upon the cold charity
of strangers. Others have been sent to cultivate the
wilderness for their subsistence, without having the
means, and compelled through want to throw themselves
on the mercy of the American States, and the charity
of former friends, to support the life which might
have been made comfortable by the money long since
due by the British Government; and many others with