the crown. On March 29, 1845, the governor assented to a bill allocating the revenue from the tavern licences in Canada West to the payment of claims by habitants settled in the former Upper Canada who had still not received any compensation. A sum of £38,658 was raised between April 5, 1845 and January 24, 1849 by the means of this law. Later, in 1846, the revenues from wedding licences were also allocated for the same purpose. Following the adoption of the address to the governor in 1845, the Draper–Viger government set up, on November 24, a commission to enquire into the claims the inhabitants of Lower Canada had sent since 1838, to determine those that were justified and provide an estimate of the amount to be paid. The five commissioners, Joseph Dionne, P. H. Moore, Jacques Viger, John Simpson and Joseph-Ubalde Beaudry, submitted their first report in April 1846. They received instructions from the government to distinguish between claims made by persons participating in the rebellion and those who had given no support to the insurrectionist party. The total of the considered claims receivable amounted to £241,965, 10s. and 5d., but the commissioners were of the opinion that following a more thorough enquiry into the claims they were unable to make, the amount to be paid by the government would likely not go beyond £100,000. The Assembly passed a motion on June 9, 1846, authorizing compensation of £9,986 for claims studied prior to the presentation of the report. Nothing further was accomplished on this question until the dissolution of parliament on December 6, 1847. Baldwin–Lafontaine government The general election of January 1848 changed the composition of the House of Assembly in favour of the opposition party, the moderate reformists led by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine. The new governor, Lord Elgin, who arrived in the colony on January 30, first formed a government that did not have the support of the majority of the members in the House. These withdrew their support of the Executive by a vote of no-confidence on March 3. On March 7, governor Elgin called in Baldwin and Lafontaine, respectively leaders of the majority parties in both sections of the united province, to the Executive Council. On March 11, 11 new ministers entered the Council. On January 29, 1849, Lafontaine moved to form a committee of the whole House on February 9 to "take into