54 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
with impunity on several of the inhabitants of this District without 
the form of trial or the least color of justice. We regret much that so 
distressing a policy should be resorted to as that of burning the houses 
of some of the persons who had left or were supposed to have left the 
District; in many cases it is the innocent alone who are the real suf- 
ferers. We beg leave to represent to you, Sir, that in many cases the 
property, real and personal, not only of persons whose duty or inclina- 
tion led them to leave this part of the country on the arrival of the army, 
but also of some persons who had, on their private affairs, left the Dis- 
trict long before that period, has been taken possession of as public 
property, by which means the same may be lost to the owners, their 
friends, or creditors. Lastly we beg to call your attention to a case of 
peculiar hardship & distress to many individuals resident on the river 
Thames. Owing to the great destruction of grain and fodder on that 
river last fall by the American army, many of the inhabitants drove 
off their cattle to a place called the Round O where they were taken 
in the course of last winter by the expedition under the command of 
Captain Holmes as public cattle. Among these cattle were the milch 
cows and working oxen of many poor families & widows, and their 
endeavors to obtain redress have hitherto heen unsuccessful & they 
themselves treated with contumely.’’! 
More than a year after the ratification of the treaty of peace, in 
consequence of a complaint to Sir George Murray, then administering 
the civil government of Upper Canada that certain persons who had 
withdrawn to the United States during the war without a license were 
returning, he deemed it expedient to issue a proclamation calling on 
the judges and commissioners appointed to carry out the provisions 
of the Sedition Act of 1805, to be vigilant in the discharge of their duties.’ 
An official list of such persons possessing lands in the province 
contains three hundred and thirty-six names and it is probable that the 
number of landless men of whom no record has been kept, was con- 
siderably greater. 
An act was passed by the Congress of the United States indemnify- 
ing for their losses all refugees from Canada who had performed military 
service in its behalf during the contest and authorizing free grants of 
public land in the territories to be made to them in proportion to their 
rank. Westbrook’s exploits in particular had given him a certain 
celebrity and a traveller relates that in 1817 he found him residing on 
lands granted to him near Fort Gratiot in Michigan.* 

1 Petition dated October 12, 1814. Signed by James Baby, James Woods, John 
McGregor and ten others. Can. Arch. Sundries U.C. 1814. 
? Proclamation, May 16, 1816. 
3T. L. McKenney, Tour to the Lakes. 
