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
their families are barely subsisting upon a temporary
allowance from Government, a mere pittance when compared
with the sum due them.

Complaints were also made about the methods of the inquiry.
The claimant was taken into a room alone with the
commissioners, was asked to submit a written and sworn
statement as to his losses and services, and was then
cross-examined both with regard to his own losses and
those of his fellow claimants. This cross-questioning
was freely denounced as an 'inquisition.'

Grave inconvenience was doubtless caused in many cases
by the delay of the commissioners in making their awards.
But on the other hand it should be remembered that the
commissioners had before them a portentous task. They
had to examine between four thousand and five thousand
claims. In most of these the amount of detail to be gone
through was considerable, and the danger of fraud was
great. There was the difficulty also of determining just
what losses should be compensated. The rule which was
followed was that claims should be allowed only for losses
of property through loyalty, for loss of offices held
before the war, and for loss of actual professional
income. No account was taken of lands bought or improved
during the war, of uncultivated lands, of property
mortgaged to its full value or with defective titles, of
damage done by British troops, or of forage taken by
them. Losses due to the fall in the value of the provincial
paper money were thrown out, as were also expenses incurred
while in prison or while living in New York city. Even
losses in trade and labour were discarded. It will be
seen that to apply these rules to thousands of detailed
claims, all of which had to be verifi