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Year
1900
Month
6
Day
16
Article Title
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Author
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Page Number
4
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
A very rich find of important documents relating to the Loyalists were recently unearthed by Mr. Bain, librarian of, the Toronto Public Library. These papers had been hidden for years in a Scottish country house, which had been formerly occupied by Dundas, who was one of the commissioners to adjust the claims of the Loyalists. Most of our readers are aware that the British government undertook to compensate the Loyalists for the losses which they had suffered as a consequence of their adhesion to the cause of the crown, and that a sum amounting to more than £3,000,000 was appropriated for that purpose. A commission was appointed to investigate the claims of the Loyalists and these commissioners found it necessary to visit the British provinces of North America. They took evidence in Halifax, St. John, Quebec, Montreal and other places. The Loyalists who had claims for loss of property appeared before them and gave their testimony, and the volumes in which this evidence is contained, thirty-nine in all, passed into the hands of the Smithsonian Institute and were by them, transferred to the library of congress where they lay buried among piles of rubbish. Mr. Bain undertook to have them copied and he obtained a small grant from the government of Ontario for that purpose. The government of Ontario and the Loyalist Societies, also, proposed to have as much of the evidence as was taken in the province of Ontario printed, but Mr. Bain thinks that the whole of the evidence ought to be printed and that the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well as the Loyalist Societies in those provinces, ought to cooperate in this work. It is clear that if any part of those documents is to be printed all should be printed, for even the Ontario portion would be imperfect unless supplemented by the evidence taken in New Brunswick. It is well known that many Loyalists who at first came to New Brunswick to reside afterwards removed to Ontario. The value of these documents consists in the fact that they contain an account of every Loyalist family of consequence, and a statement of their property as given by themselves. We think that there are no documents connected with the Loyalists which could possibly be more valuable than these volumes of testimony, and we hope that the governments both of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia will feel it to be their duty to assist in their publication. The cost will be a mere trifle in comparison with the value of the documents for the purpose of elucidating the early history of this country.