AND THE GOVERNMENT. , 375 the reasons which may be supposed to have determined 1789 it in the course it pursued. Whatever they may have been, it is not easy to see, at first sight, what weight they were entitled to when contrasted with those on the other side. For some years after the loyahsts had been driven Reward for out of the United States, the question as to what should be °*^ ^* done for them by the Government had been a standing subject of discussion, in Parliament and out of it. In June, 1783, Lord John Cavendish, then Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, presented a petition from their agents, and after- pariiament- wards moved for a bill instituting a new commission for the ^^^ purpose of inquiring who were the persons entitled to relief in consequence of their sufferings during the war.* It was not until five years had passed away that Pitt brought forward his proposal to grant the sufferers compensation in the shape of debentures, to be paid off by means of a lottery. During the interval, many of them had practically settled q/^"*®" the difficulty for themselves by removing in large numbers loyalists, to British America and the West Indies.f There is reason to suppose that it was owing largely to this question of the loyalists that Matra was led in 1783 to J^J^* make his proposals for the colonisation of New South Wales. ?<>*"*• His paper is dated 23rd August of that year ; in January the independence of the United States had been recognised, and immediately after that event the exodus of the colonists began. The essence of his proposal was that the colony should be founded by free settlers, and he pointed to the loyalists as the men for the purpose. It was not until
- Parliamentary History, vol. xxiii, p. 1041.
t The position of the loyalists, after the close of the war, ma^r be seen in a notice published in the Monthly Review for July, 1786, vol. Ixxiii, p. 6.3, of a pamphlet entitled An Address to the Loyal Part of the British Empire and the Friends of Monarchy throughout the Globe. By John Cruden, Esq., President of the Assembly of the United Loyalists, &c. The Review said: — "The fate of the American loyalists in the southern provinces is peculiarly distressing. It is stated that they took refuge in Florida, under the promise of protection from the British Government, but on the event of the peace, found themselves left unnoticed in the hands of the Spaniards, to whom that province was ceded, and by whom they were ordered to quit it. In this exigence they have empowered Mr. Cruden, one of their number, Digitized by Google
