Every Canadian who has passed middle age remembers that disturbed time. The excitement arose out of the Rebellion Losses Bill, as it was called--a measure introduced by Mr. Lafontaine, the object of which was to reimburse such of the inhabitants of the Lower Province as had sustained loss from the rebellion of eleven years before. Within a very short time after the close of that rebellion, the attention of both sections of the colony was directed to compensating those who had suffered by it. First came the case of the primary sufferers, if so they may be called; that is, the Loyalists, whose property had been destroyed by rebels. Measures were at once taken to indemnify all such persons--in Upper Canada, by an Act passed in the last session of its separate Parliament; in Lower Canada, by an ordinance of the Special Council, under which it was at that time administered. But it was felt that this was not enough; that where property had been wantonly and unnecessarily destroyed, even though it were by persons acting in support of authority, some compensation ought to be given; and the Upper Canada Act above mentioned was amended next year, in the first session of the United Parliament, so as to extend to all losses occasioned by violence on the part of persons acting or assuming to act on Her Majesty's behalf. Nothing was done at this time about Lower Canada; but it was obviously inevitable that the treatment applied to the one Province should be extended to the other. Accordingly, in 1845, during Lord Metcalfe's Government, and under a Conservative Administration, an Address was adopted unanimously by the Assembly, praying His Excellency to cause proper measures to be taken "in order to insure to the inhabitants of that portion of the Province formerly Lower Canada indemnity for just losses by them sustained during the Rebellion of 1837 and 1838." In pursuance of this address, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the claims of persons whose property had been destroyed in the Rebellion; the Commissioners receiving instructions to distinguish the cases of persons who had abetted the said rebellion from the cases of those who had not. The Commissioners made their investigations, and reported that they had recognized, as worthy of further inquiry, claims representing a sum total of L241,965 10s. 5d.; but they added an expression of opinion that the losses suffered would be found, on closer examination, not to exceed the value of L100,000. This report was rendered in April, 1846; but though Lord Metcalfe's Ministry, which had issued the Commission avowedly as preliminary to a subsequent and more minute inquiry, remained in office for nearly two years longer, they took no steps towards carrying out their declared intentions. So the matter stood when the Baldwin-Lafontaine Administration was formed. It was natural that they should take up the work left half done by their predecessors; and early in the session of 1849 Mr.