An important bill came up this session entitled “an act to provide for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose property was destroyed during the rebellion in the years 1837 and 1838.” It was called the Rebellion Losses Bill. It would seem rather belatedly brought in but it had been promised in some form during the past ten years as a means of indemnifying those who had suffered from the very great destruction of property during that agitated period. In 1845 the rebellion losses committee first sat. On April 18th the commissioners reported that they recognized 2,276 claims, amounting in the aggregate to £241,965, and were of the opinion that £100,000 would be sufficient to pay all real losses. On January 18, 1849, Mr. Lafontaine moved the belated bill. It made provision for the appointment of five commissioners to carry out the act and a sum of £100,000 was appropriated to pay the claims. Those, however, who had been convicted of treason during the rebellion and who had been sent to Bermuda, were excepted from claiming any share in the grant. This, it will be seen, allowed “rebels” who had not been convicted, an equal right to compensation with the “loyalists.” Consequently a storm broke out in parliament and in the country, but especially in Montreal. Various pamphlets appeared in Montreal at this time, indicating opposition, such as that entitled “The Question Answered; Did the Ministry intend to pay Rebels? Montreal, 1849,” supposed to have been written by the Hon. Alexander Morris, then a law student, and a young tory journalist, Hugh E. Montgomerie. Yet the government was right in their inclusion of “rebels” for it would have been very unwise at that period to reopen the question as to who had been rebels and who had not. Besides the amnesty granted long since had plastered over all differences.