Years passed away before the commissioners had decided upon all the claims, and great and loud was the complaint made by the claimants. The press was invoked to secure a more prompt concession of justice, pamphlets were published on their behalf, and one printed in 1788, five years after the peace, contained the following: “It is well that this delay of justice has produced the most melancholy and shocking events. A number of the sufferers have been driven by it 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 a 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 their former friends, to support the life which might have been made comfortable by the money long since due from 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.” The total number of claimants was 5,072, of whom 924 withdrew or failed to make good the claim. The sum of money allowed was £3,294,452. We have seen there was, in addition, given to the widows and orphans, between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds. There is no doubt that a certain number of the claimants were impostors, while many asked remuneration above what their losses had actually been, and this caused the commissioners to examine more closely the claims proffered. But it is submitted that they ought, in dealing with the money already granted by a considerate Parliament, to have leaned on the side of clemency. At the close of the contest there were a large number of Refugees in Lower Canada, especially at Fort St. John, about twenty-nine miles from Montreal. In the main these were American born, and principally from the New England States; yet there were representatives from England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany. Besides the Refugees, there were several Provincial Corps, which were no longer to be retained in the service, but to be disbanded. Of these there was the 84th, often called Johnson’s regiment, this was 800 strong, mostly Dutch, from the Mohawk, and Hudson, descendants of the old stock. This regiment consisted of two corps, one under Major Jessup, stationed at St. John’s, and the other under Rogers, a part of which at least, was stationed at Fort Oswego. Jessup’s corps became the first pioneers upon the St. Lawrence, and Rogers among the first along the Bay of Quinté. Both settled in 1784. There were other troops stationed at St. John’s, and likewise not a few who had discharged irregular, but important duties, as scouts, and in other ways.