For this purpose the Coalition Government of Fox and North appointed in July 1783 a royal commission ‘to inquire into the losses and services of all such persons who have suffered in their rights, properties, and professions during the late unhappy dissensions in America, in consequence of their loyalty to His Majesty and attachment to the British Government.’ A full account of the proceedings of the commission is to be found in the _Historical View of the Commission for Inquiry into the Losses, Services, and Claims of the American Loyalists_, published in London in 1815 by one of the commissioners, John Eardley Wilmot. The commission was originally appointed to sit for only two years; but the task which confronted it was so great that it was found necessary several times to renew the act under which it was appointed; and not until 1790 was the long inquiry brought to an end. It was intended at first that the claims of the men in the Loyalist regiments should be sent in through their officers; and Sir John Johnson, for instance, was asked to transmit the claims of the Loyalists settled in Canada. But it was found that this method did not provide sufficient guarantee against fraudulent and exorbitant claims; and eventually members of the commission were compelled to go in person to New York, Nova Scotia, and Canada. The delay in concluding the work of the commission caused great indignation. A tract which appeared in London in 1788 entitled _The Claim of, the American Loyalists Reviewed and Maintained upon Incontrovertible Principles of Law and 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.’