the cases of those "who had joined, aided or abetted the said
rebellion, from the cases of those who had not done so," and they
accordingly applied for definite advice from Lord Cathcart, whose
advisers were still the Draper-Viger ministry. The commissioners were
officially informed that "it was his Excellency's intention that they
should be guided by no other description of evidence than that
furnished by the sentences of the courts of law." They were further
informed that it was only intended that they should form a general
estimate of the rebellion losses, "the particulars of which must form
the subject of more minute inquiry hereafter, under legislative
authority."

During the session of 1846 the commissioners made a report which gave
a list of 2,176 persons who made claims amounting in the aggregate to
£241,965. At the same time the commissioners expressed the opinion
that £100,000 would be adequate to satisfy all just demands, and
directed attention to the fact that upwards of £25,503 were actually
claimed by persons who had been condemned by a court-martial for their
participation in the rebellion. The report also set forth that the
inquiry conducted by the commissioners had been necessarily imperfect
in the absence of legal power to make a minute investigation, and that
they had been compelled largely to trust to the allegations of the
claimants who had laid their cases before them, and that it was only
from data collected in this way that they had been able to come to
conclusions as to the amount of losses.

When the Draper-Viger ministry first showed a readiness to take up the
claims of Lower Canada for the same compensation that had been granted
to Upper Canada, they had been doubtless influenced, not solely by the
conviction that they were called upon to perform an act of justice,