Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2018 Archive

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“Loyalist Trails” 2018-42: October 21, 2018

In this issue:
- This Arduous and Invidious Task: Part 3, by Stephen Davidson
- Borealia: Early-Modern Place Names in Today's Canada
- JAR: Book Review: Washington in the Hurricane's Eye
- Ben Franklin's World: Turning Points of the American Revolution
- UE Loyalist Certificates Issued Recently
- Where in the World?
- Region and Branch Bits
- From the Twittersphere and Beyond

Articles

This Arduous and Invidious Task: Part 3

John Eardley Wilmot and the commissioners for the Royal Commission on the Losses and Services of American Loyalists (RCLSAL) submitted their first report to the British government in August of 1784, months after the March deadline. It was very obvious that the RCLSAL had only just begun to scratch the surface of the whole process of compensating loyalists. Parliament renewed the act that created the commission and extended its deadline to May 1, 1786.

Having played judge and jury for hundreds of loyalists within their first year, the RCLSAL commissioners came to realize that they were only hearing the claims of refugees who had been able to find asylum in Britain. To be fair, they needed to send commissioners to British North America to hear the claims of the refugees who had settled in Canada and the Maritime colonies. This extension of the RCLSAL's scope "showed their anxiety to do justice to their loyal fellow subjects, who might otherwise have been prevented from receiving the benefit intended them."

In September of 1785, Col. Pemberton and Col. Thomas Dundas, who had served as commissioners in London, set sail for Halifax where they heard their first claimants on December seventh. Dundas and Pemberton recognized that granting compensation to the loyalists who had found asylum in British North America would aid "the progress and improvement of their infant settlements {and} would eventually prove beneficial to the whole province." The two commissioners would not be finished hearing loyalist claims in North America until May 28, 1788.

Anxious to gather as much accurate background evidence as possible, the RCLSAL also sent John Anstey, a barrister at law, to the United States to collect lists that itemized the seizures of loyalist property, the names of banished loyalists, and any accounts that would substantiate or negate a loyalist's claim.

As the RCLSAL carried on its "invidious" task, the deadline for loyalist claim submissions continued to be extended -- and the act that created it continued to be renewed.

On April 5, 1788, Wilmot submitted the 11th RCLSAL report to the government. At this point in time, he had been responsible for the financial fortunes of thousands of loyalists for five years. The data that he received from overseas was making that task an easier one.

"The Commissioners in Nova Scotia, and Mr. Anstey in the United States, had made considerable progress in their different pursuits; the latter had sent over at various times the result of his Enquiries, by which much authentic evidence was obtained particularly as to the confiscation, sale, value, and total loss of the property of the claimants: this contributed much to aid the honest, to detect the fraudulent, or to correct the mistaken claimant; but more especially enabled the commissioners to do justice to many, who would otherwise not have been able to have substantiated their claims."

Over the summer of 1788, the RCLSAL commissioners submitted the names of the loyalists who were to be compensated to the British government. Both sides of the House of Commons (and the Agents for American Loyalists) approved the "Plan of Relief and Compensation". The commission was extended for one final year to hear the last of the cases for compensation. Anstey and the commissioners who had been in British North America reviewed the claims made by loyalists over the past five years "to correct any mistakes and to reconsider any points".

On May 15, 1789, Wilmot and his fellow RCLSAL commissioners submitted their 12th and final report to the British government. As there were still a few matters outstanding, the commission was renewed yet again. However, by the spring of 1790 "the business was finally settled and adjusted by Parliament". In the end, all "classes" of loyalists were compensated in the same manner.

Over seven years of testimony, interviews, and investigations, more than 5,000 loyalist claims had been considered. Compensation totaling £2,613,260 was distributed to loyalists scattered throughout the empire. Whether John Wilmot, Robert Kingston, and John Marsh, the longsuffering RCLSAL commissioners, received any sort of commendation for their years of labour goes unrecorded.

With the conclusion of the Royal Commission on the Losses and Services of American Loyalists, John Wilmot's life could now return to normal. He wrote a memoir of his service on the RCLSAL sometime over the next two years, and died in his 83rd year in 1792. His "arduous and invidious task" became the crowning glory of his lifetime of service to his king and country.

Twenty years after the commissioner's death, the famous artist Benjamin West painted Wilmot's portrait, a canvas that had in its background another painting showing how Britain received and rewarded its American loyalists. In 1815, Wilmot's Historical View of the Commission was published "to give a faithful representation of the facts and persons connected with the whole transaction".

Wilmot's memoir of this important chapter in loyalist history sheds a very human light on what one might easily dismiss as a boring bit of bureaucratic history. It also reveals the heart of a hard working member of Parliament who laboured seven years on behalf of thousands of refugees in both England and North America.

"We cannot flatter ourselves that no errors have been committed," confessed John Wilmot," but we have this consolation, that the most assidious endeavours have not been wanting on our part to do justice to the individuals and to the public."

To secure permission to reprint this article, email Stephen Davidson.

Borealia: Early-Modern Place Names in Today's Canada

by Lauren Beck, 10 October 2018

The Geographic Names Board of Canada (GNBC) provides scholars with a database of place names that allows users to look up the location of a place name, but that's about all the information one can glean from this utility. The provinces provide their own toponymic research tools, and these tend to be more informative. New Brunswick, for instance, allows searchers to query a name and gives background on the name's meaning and the town or feature's history.

These research tools allow us to better understand our place nomenclature as well as how frequently certain names have been used across the country. Moncton, New Brunswick, also shares its place name with Sommet de Moncton in Charlevoix, Quebec, and the toponym appears in two street names located in this second province...

At odds with this place-naming practice are Indigenous and Inuit approaches to bestowing names upon features and settlements. Unlike Europeans and settlers in Canada, Indigenous names tend to be descriptive of the place and almost never commemorate individuals. Thus, when examining the subject of gendered toponymy, Indigenous names rarely arise.

Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2018 Archive

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