The number of claimants who applied for money compensation was 5,072: 954 claims were withdrawn or not prosecuted, and the number of claims examined was 4,118.[171] The very large majority of the Loyalists therefore did not participate in the grant, but for a great many of them homes, grants of land and, for the time being, rations were found in Canada, where General Haldimand and after him Guy Carleton, then Lord Dorchester, cared for the friends of England. Among the most deserving and the most valuable of the refugees were the members of ‘His Majesty’s Provincial Regiments’, the various Loyalist corps raised in America, the commanding officers of which, on the 14th of March, 1783, presented a touching and dignified memorial to Carleton while still Commander-in-Chief at New York. They set out their claims and services. They asked that provision should be made for the disabled, the widows, and the orphans; that the rank of the officers might be permanent in America and that they might be placed on half pay upon the reduction of their regiments; and ‘that grants of land may be made to them in some of His Majesty’s American provinces, and that they may be assisted in making settlements, in order that they and their children may enjoy the benefits of the British Government’.[172] [Sidenote: Numbers, with places, and destinations of the Loyalists.] [Sidenote: New York the principal Loyalist state.] Where did the Loyalists come from, where did they go, and what was their number? The questions are difficult to answer. In all the states there were many Loyalists, though the numbers were much larger in some than in others, and varied at different times according to special circumstances or the characters and actions of local leaders on either side. New England and Virginia were to the front on the Patriot, Whig, or Revolutionary side. In New England Massachusetts, as always, took the lead. Here the Loyalist cause was weakened and depressed by the early evacuation of Boston and the departure of a large number of Loyalist citizens who accompanied Howe’s army when it left for Halifax. Of the other New England states, Connecticut, though it supplied a large number of men to Washington’s army, seems to have contained relatively more Loyalists than the other New England states, probably because it bordered on the principal Loyalist stronghold, New York. In Virginia Washington’s personal influence counted for much, and the King’s governor Lord Dunmore, by burning down the town of Norfolk, would seem to have alienated sympathies from the British side. New York was the last state to declare for independence. Throughout the war it contained a stronger proportion of Loyalists than any other state, and of the claims to compensation which were admitted by the commissioners quite one-third were credited to New York. The commercial interests of the port, traditional jealousy of New England, neighbourhood to Canada, made for the British connexion.