made claims amounting in the aggregate to
L241,965. At the same time the commissioners expressed the opinion
that L100,000 would be adequate to satisfy all just demands, and
directed attention to the fact that upwards of L25,503 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,
but mainly by a desire to strengthen themselves in the French
province. We have already read that their efforts in this direction
entirely failed, and that they never obtained in that section any
support from the recognized leaders of public opinion, but were
obliged to depend upon Denis B. Papineau and Viger to keep up a
pretence of French Canadian representation in the cabinet. It is,
then, easy to believe that, when the report of the commissioners came
before them, they were not very enthusiastic on the subject, or
prepared to adopt vigorous measures to settle the question on some
equitable basis, and remove it entirely from the field of political
and national conflict.

They did nothing more than make provision for the payment of L9,986,
which represented claims fully investigated and recognized as
justifiable before the union, and left the general question of
indemnity for future consideration. Indeed, it is doubtful if the
Conservative ministry of that day, the mere creation of Lord Metcalfe,
kept in power by a combination of Tories and other factions in Upper
Canada, could have satisfactorily dealt with a question which required
the interposition of a government having the confidence of both
sections of the province. One thing is quite certain. This ministry,
weak as it was, Tory and ultra-loyalist as it claimed to be, had
recognized by the appointment of a commission, the justice of