Note 127 — PART II.

It has already been mentioned that the Legislature of South Carolina (the only State of the American Republic) had taken steps to restore the estates of several of her Loyalists. This "caused the withdrawal of the claims of their owners (before the English Commissioners), except that in instances of alleged strip and waste, amercements, and similar losses, inquiries were instituted to ascertain the value of what was taken compared with that which was returned."

The English Commissioners, in their twelfth and last report, remark on this subject as follows:

"We thought it our duty to state, in our second report of the 24th December, 1784, that the State of South Carolina had, by an Act of the 24th March, 1784, restored the confiscated property of certain Loyalists, subject to the restrictions therein mentioned; and that in consequence thereof many had withdrawn the claims they had before presented to us. We find, however, that in many instances the parties have not been able to reap that advantage they had expected, and which the Act above-mentioned held out to them. In some instances the property restored has been so wasted and injured as to be of little value; in others, the amercements and charges have been nearly equal to the value of the fee simple of the estates; and in many, where the indents[128] being the species of money received by the State, have been restored to the former proprietors, an inevitable and considerable loss has been sustained by the depreciation. In all these cases we have made minute inquiry into the real benefit that has been derived from such restitution, whether of the property itself, or of the indents in lien of it; and having endeavoured to ascertain, as nearly as the circumstances would admit, the value of what was lost and the value of what was restored, we have considered the difference as the real loss of the party."