ssioners 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.

There is no doubt that the atrocities of which Montreal was the scene
constitute the most discreditable features in modern Canadian history,
and which, it is to be hoped, the instigators to and actors in are long
since fully ashamed of; nor can the temper and judgment of the
Governor-General on this trying occasion be too highly extolled. When it
was imperative to dissolve the Parliament, he foresaw th