PEACE WITHOUT HONOUR
The war was brought to a virtual termination by the surrender of
Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. The definitive articles of
peace were signed at Versailles on September 3, 1783. During the two
years that intervened between these events, the lot of the Loyalists was
one of gloomy uncertainty. They found it hard to believe that the British
government would abandon them to the mercy of their enemies; and yet
the temper of the revolutionists toward them continued such that there
seemed little hope of concession or conciliation. Success had not taught
the rebels the grace of forgiveness. At the capitulation of Yorktown,
Washington had refused to treat with the Loyalists in Cornwallis’s army
on the same terms as with the British regulars; and Cornwallis had been
compelled to smuggle his Loyalist levies out of Yorktown on the ship that
carried the news of his surrender to New York. As late as 1782 fresh
confiscation laws had been passed in Georgia and the Carolinas; and in
New York a law had been passed cancelling all debts due to Loyalists, on
condition that one-fortieth of the debt was paid into the state treasury.
These were straws which showed the way the wind was blowing.
In the negotiations leading up to the Peace of Versailles there were
no clauses so long and bitterly discussed as those relating to the
Loyalists. The British commissioners stood out at first for the principle
of complete amnesty to them and restitution of all they had lost; and
it is noteworthy that the French minister added his plea to theirs. But
Benjamin Franklin and his colleagues refused to agree to this formula.
They took the ground that they, as the representatives merely of the
Continental Congress, had not the right to bind the individual states in
such a matter. The argument was a quibble. Their real reason was that
they were well aware that public opinion in America would not support
them in such a concession. A few enlightened men in America, such as John
Adams, favoured a policy of compensation to the Loyalists, ‘how little
soever they deserve it, nay, how much soever they deserve the contrary’;
but the attitude of the great majority of the Americans had been clearly
demonstrated by a resolution passed in the legislature of Virginia on
December 17, 1782, to the effect that all demands for the restitution of
confiscated property were wholly inadmissible. Even some of the Loyalists
had begun to realize that a revolution which had touched property was
bound to be permanent, and that the American commissioners could no more
give back to them their confiscated lands than Charles II was able to
give back to his father’s cavaliers the estates they had lost in the
Civil War.
[Illustration: LORD CORNWALLIS
From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery]
The American commissioners agreed, finally, that no future confiscations
should take place, that imprisoned Loyalists should be released, that
no further persecutions should be permitted, and that creditors on
either side should ‘meet with no lawful impediment’ to the recovery of
all good debts in sterling money. But with regard to the British demand
for restitution, all they could be induced to sign was a promise that
Congress would ‘earnestly recommend to the legislatures of the respective
states’ a policy of amnesty and restitution.
In making this last recommendation, it is difficult not to convict the
American commissioners of something very like hypocrisy. There seems
to be no doubt that they knew the recommendation would not be complied
with; and little or no attempt was made by them to persuade the states
to comply with it. In after years the clause was represented by the
Americans as a mere form of words, necessary to bring the negotiations
to an end, and to save the face of the British government. To this day
it has remained, except in one or two states, a dead letter. On the
other hand it is impossible not to convict the British commissioners of
a betrayal of the Loyalists. ‘Never,’ said Lord North in the House of
Commons, ‘never was the honour, the humanity, the principles, the policy
of a nation so grossly abused, as in the desertion of those men who are
now exposed to every punishment that desertion and poverty can inflict,
because they were not rebels.’ ‘In ancient or in modern history,’ said
Lord Loughborough in the House of Lords, ‘there cannot be found an
instance of so shameful a desertion of men who have sacrificed all to
their duty and to their reliance upon our faith.’ It seems probable that
the British commissioners could have obtained, on paper at any rate,
better terms for the Loyalists. It is very doubtful if the Americans
would have gone to war again over such a question. In 1783 the position
of Great Britain was relatively not weaker, but stronger, than in 1781,
when hostilities had ceased. The attitude of the French minister, and the
state of the French finances, made it unlikely that France would lend her
support to further hostilities. And there is no doubt that the American
states were even more sorely in need of peace than was Great Britain.
When the terms of peace were announced, great was the bitterness among
the Loyalists. One of them protested in _Rivington’s Gazette_ that ‘even
robbers, murderers, and rebels are faithful to their fellows and never
betray each other,’ and another sang,
’Tis an honour to serve the bravest of nations,
And be left to be hanged in their capitulations.
If the terms of the peace had been observed, the plight of the Loyalists
would have been bad enough. But as it was, the outcome proved even
worse. Every clause in the treaty relating to the Loyalists was broken
over and over again. There was no sign of an abatement of the popular
feeling against them; indeed, in some places, the spirit of persecution
seemed to blaze out anew. One of Washington’s bitterest sayings was
uttered at this time, when he said of the Loyalists that ‘he could see
nothing better for them than to commit suicide.’ Loyalist creditors
found it impossible to recover their debts in America, while they were
themselves sued in the British courts by their American creditors, and
their property was still being confiscated by the American legislatures.
The legislature of New York publicly declined to reverse its policy
of confiscation, on the ground that Great Britain had offered no
compensation for the property which her friends had destroyed. Loyalists
who ventured to return home under the treaty of peace were insulted,
tarred and feathered, whipped, and even ham-strung. All over the country
there were formed local committees or associations with the object of
preventing renewed intercourse with the Loyalists and the restitution
of Loyalist property. ‘The proceedings of these people,’ wrote Sir Guy
Carleton, ‘are not to be attributed to politics alone—it serves as a
pretence, and under that cloak they act more boldly, but avarice and a
desire of rapine are the great incentives.’
The Loyalists were even denied civil rights in most of the states. In
1784 an act was passed in New York declaring that all who had held
office under the British, or helped to fit out vessels of war, or who had
served as privates or officers in the British Army, or who had left the
state, were guilty of ‘misprision of treason,’ and were disqualified from
both the franchise and public office. There was in fact hardly a state in
1785 where the Loyalist was allowed to vote. In New York Loyalist lawyers
were not allowed to practise until April 1786, and then only on condition
of taking an ‘oath of abjuration and allegiance.’ In the same state,
Loyalists were subjected to such invidious special taxation that in 1785
one of them confessed that ‘those in New York whose estates have not been
confiscated are so loaded with taxes and other grievances that there is
nothing left but to sell out and move into the protection of the British
government.’
It was clear that something would have to be done by the British
government for the Loyalists’ relief. ‘It is utterly impossible,’ wrote
Sir Guy Carleton to Lord North, ‘to leave exposed to the rage and
violence of these people [the Americans] men of character whose only
offence has been their attachment to the King’s service.’ Accordingly
the British government made amends for its betrayal of the Loyalists by
taking them under its wing. It arranged for the transportation of all
those who wished to leave the revolted states; it offered them homes
in the provinces of Nova Scotia and Quebec; it granted half-pay to the
officers after their regiments were reduced; and it appointed a royal
commission to provide compensation for the losses sustained.
[Illustration: UPPER AND LOWER CANADA AND THE MARITIME PROVINCES AT THE
TIME OF THE LOYALISTS SETTLEMENTS]