“A Statement of Losses Sustained”

While the war raged in the Niagara District, Elizabeth Campbell and her three surviving children undertook an arduous winter to seek refuge at York. They arrived in York by February 1814, where Campbell received £50 in aid from the Loyal and Patriotic Society to address her immediate concern of survival while she determined her next steps. During her time in York, Campbell took action to seek compensation for the loss of her house and property in Newark. With the help of William Allan, who would later serve on the Board of Claims for Losses in 1823, Campbell prepared a petition to Lieutenant-Governor Gordon Drummond, requesting that he “perceive the extent of her misfortune, and afford her, if possible, some remuneration.”²⁴⁸ Like many Upper Canadians, Campbell hoped that the government would provide some restitution for her losses and addressed her petition to the highest authority in the province. In this act, Campbell was following a well-established pattern in colonial British North America in which subjects exercised their right to petition the Crown or its representative. The high population of Loyalists in Upper Canada meant “that the correct and acceptable form of the petition was soon widely known and almost invariably used.”²⁴⁹ Campbell’s petition took the acceptable form and included a statement by Reverend Robert Addison, William Claus, and Thomas Dickson in support of the facts of her losses. Unfortunately, Drummond replied that it was not in his “power to grant her the remuneration she desired.”²⁵⁰ This denial may have prompted Campbell to use her dwindling resources and temporary aid from the LPS to fund her journey to Nova Scotia, where she could rely on the support of her extended family. Thousands of Upper Canadians sought remuneration for losses incurred during the war but were forced to wait over a decade before the government reviewed their cases and issued compensation.