GUARDING THE LOYALISTS
1782-1783
Burgoyne's surrender marked the turning of the tide
against the British arms. True, the three campaigns of
purely civil war, begun in 1775, had reached no decisive
result. True also that the Independence declared in 1776
had no apparent chance of becoming an accomplished fact.
But 1777 was the fatal year for all that. The long
political strife in England, the gross mismanagement of
colonial affairs under Germain, and the shameful blunders
that made Saratoga possible, all combined to encourage
foreign powers to take the field against the king's
incompetent and distracted ministry. France, Spain, and
Holland joined the Americans in arms; while Russia,
Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and all the German seaboard
countries formed the Armed Neutrality of the North. This
made stupendous odds--no less than ten to one. First of
the ten came the political opposition at home, which, in
regard to the American rebellion itself, was at least
equal to the most powerful enemy abroad. Next came the
four enemies in arms: the American rebels, France, Spain,
and Holland. Finally came the five armed neutrals, all
ready to use their navies on the slightest provocation.
From this it may be seen that not one-half, perhaps not
a quarter, of all the various forces that won the
Revolutionary war were purely American. Nor were the
Americans and their allies together victorious over the
mother country, but only over one sorely hampered party
in it. Yet, from the nature of the case, the Americans
got much more than the lion's share of the spoils, while,
even in their own eyes, they seemed to have gained honour
and glory in the same proportion. The last real campaign
was fought in 1781 and ended with the British surrender
at Yorktown. From that time on peace was in the air. The
unfortunate ministry, now on the eve of political defeat
at home, were sick of civil war and only too anxious for
a chance of uniting all parties against the foreign foes.
But they had first to settle with the Americans, who had
considered themselves an independent sovereign power for
the last five years and who were determined to make the
most of England's difficulties. No darker New Year's Day
had ever dawned on any cabinet than that of 1782 on
North's. In spite of his change from repression to
conciliation, and in spite of dismissing Germain to the
House of Lords with an ill-earned peerage, Lord North
found his majority dwindling away. At last, on the 20th
of March, he resigned.
Meanwhile every real statesman in either party had felt
that the crisis required the master-hand of Carleton.
With Germain, the empire-wrecker, gone, Carleton would
doubtless have served under any cabinet, for no government
could have done without him. But his actual commission
came through the Rockingham administration on the 4th of
April. After three quiet years of retirement at his
country seat in Hampshire he was again called upon to
face a situation of extreme difficulty. For once, with
a wisdom rare enough in any age and almost unknown in
that one, the government gave him a free hand and almost
unlimited powers. The only questions over which he had
no final power were those of making treaties. He was
appointed 'General and Commander-in-chief of all His
Majesty's forces within the Colonies lying in the Atlantic
Ocean, from Nova Scotia to the Floridas, and inclusive
of Newfoundland and Canada should they be attacked.' He
was also appointed commissioner for executing the terms
of any treaty that might be made; and his instructions
contained two passages which bore eloquent witness to
the universal confidence reposed in him. 'It is impossible
to judge of the precise situation at so great a distance'
and 'His Majesty's affairs are so situated that further
deliberations give way to instant decision. We are
satisfied that whatever inconveniences may arise they
will be compensated by the presence of a commander-in-chief
of whose discretion, conduct, and ability His Majesty
has long entertained the highest opinion.' Thus the great
justifier of British rule beyond the seas arrived in New
York on the 9th of May 1782 with at least some hope of
reconciling enough Americans to turn the scale before it
was too late.
For three months the prospect, though worse than he had
anticipated, did not seem utterly hopeless. It had been
considerably brightened by Rodney's great victory over
the French fleet which was on its way to attack Jamaica.
But an unfortunate incident happened to be exasperating
Loyalists and revolutionists at this very time. Some
revolutionists had killed a Loyalist named Philip White,
apparently out of pure hate. Some Loyalists, under Captain
Lippincott, then seized and hanged Joshua Huddy, a captain
in the Congress militia, out of sheer revenge. A paper
left pinned on Huddy's breast bore the inscription: 'Up
goes Huddy for Philip White.' Washington then demanded
that Lippincott should be delivered up; and, on Carleton's
refusal, chose a British prisoner by lot instead. The
lot fell on a young Lieutenant Asgill of the Guards,
whose mother appealed to the king and queen of France
and to their powerful minister, Vergennes. The American
Congress wanted blood for blood, which would have led to
an endless vendetta. But Vergennes pointed out that
Asgill, a youth of nineteen, was as much a prisoner of
the king of France as of the Continental Congress. At
this the Congress gnashed its teeth, but had to give way.
While the Asgill affair was still running its course,
and embittering Loyalists and rebels more than ever,
Carleton was suddenly informed that the government had
decided to grant complete independence. This was more
than he could stand; and he at once asked to be recalled.
He had been all for honourable reconciliation from the
first. He had been particularly kind to his American
prisoners in Canada and had purposely refrained from
annihilating the American army after the battle of Three
Rivers. But he was not prepared for independence. Nor
had he been sent out with this ostensible object in view.
His official instructions were to inform the Americans
that 'the most liberal sentiments had taken root in the
nation, and that the narrow policy of monopoly was totally
extinguished.' Now he was called upon to surrender without
having tried either his arms or his diplomacy. With
British sea-power beginning to reassert its age-long
superiority over all possible rivals, with practically
all constitutional points of dispute conceded to the
revolutionists, and with the certain knowledge that by
no means the majority of all Americans were absolute
anti-British out-and-outers, he thought it no time to
dismember the Empire. His Intelligence Department had
been busily collecting information which seems surprising
enough as we read it over to-day, but which was based on
the solid facts of that unhappy time. One member of the
Continental Congress was anxious to know what would become
of the American army if reconciliation should be effected
on the understanding that there would be no more imperial
taxation or customs duty--would it become part of the
Imperial Army, or what?
But speculation on all such contingencies was suddenly
cut short by the complete change of policy at home. The
idea was to end the civil war that had divided the Empire
and to concentrate on the foreign war that at least united
the people of Great Britain. No matter at what cost this
policy had now to be carried out; and Carleton was the
only man that every one would trust to do it. So,
sacrificing his own feelings and convictions, he made
the best of an exceedingly bad business. He had to
safeguard the prisoners and Loyalists while preparing to
evacuate the few remaining footholds of British power in
the face of an implacable foe. At the same time he had
to watch every other point in North America and keep in
touch with his excellent naval colleague, Admiral Digby,
lest his own rear might be attacked by the three foreign
enemies of England. He was even ordered off to the West
Indies in the autumn. But counter-orders fortunately
arrived before he could start. Thus, surrounded by enemies
in front and rear and on both flanks, he spent the seven
months between August and the following March.
At the end of March 1783 news arrived that the preliminary
treaty of peace had been signed. The final treaty was
not signed till his fifty-ninth birthday, the 3rd of the
following September. The signature of the preliminaries
simplified the naval and military situation. But it made
the situation of the Loyalists worse than ever. Compared
with them the prisoners of war had been most highly
favoured from the first. And yet the British prisoners
had little to thank the Congress for. That they were
badly fed and badly housed was not always the fault of
the Americans. But that political favourites and underlings
were allowed to prey on them was an inexcusable disgrace.
When a prisoner complained, he was told it was the fault
of the British government which would not pay for his
keep! This answer, so contrary to all the accepted usages
of war, which reserve such payments till after the
conclusion of peace, was no empty gibe; for when, some
time before the preliminaries had been signed, the British
and American commissioners met to effect an exchange of
prisoners, the Americans began by claiming the immediate
payment of what the British prisoners had cost them. This
of course broke up the meeting at once. In the meantime
the German prisoners in British pay were offered their
freedom at eighty dollars a head. Then farmers came
forward to buy up these prisoners at this price. But the
farmers found competitors in the recruiting sergeants,
who urged the Germans, with only too much truth, not to
become 'the slaves of farmers' but to follow 'the glorious
trade of war' against their employers, the British
government. To their honour be it said, these Germans
kept faith with the British, much to the surprise of the
Americans, who, like many modern writers, could not
understand that these foreign mercenaries took a
professional pride in carrying out a sworn contract, even
when it would pay them better to break it. The British
prisoners were not put up for sale in the same way. But
money sent to them had a habit of disappearing on the
road--one item mentioned by Carleton amounted to six
thousand pounds.
If such was the happy lot of prisoners during the war,
what was the wretched lot of Loyalists after the treaty
of peace? The words of one of the many petitions sent in
to Carleton will suggest the answer. 'If we have to
encounter this inexpressible misfortune we beg consideration
for our lives, fortunes, and property, _and not by mere
terms of treaty_.' What this means cannot be appreciated
unless we fully realize how strong the spirit of hate
and greed had grown, and why it had grown so strong.
The American Revolution had not been provoked by
oppression, violence, and massacre. The 'chains and
slavery' of revolutionary orators was only a figure of
speech. The real causes were constitutional and personal;
and the actual crux of the question was one of payment
for defence. Of course there were many other causes at
work. The social, religious, and political grudges with
which so many emigrants had left the mother country had
not been forgotten and were now revived. Commercial
restrictions, however well they agreed with the spirit
of the age, were galling to such keen traders. And the
mere difference between colonies and motherland had
produced misunderstandings on both sides. But the main
provocative cause was Imperial taxation for local defence.
The Thirteen Colonies could not have held their own by
land or sea, much less could they have conquered their
French rivals, without the Imperial forces, which, indeed,
had done by far the greater part of the fighting. How
was the cost to be shared between the mother country and
themselves? The colonies had not been asked to pay more
than their share. The point was whether they could be
taxed at all by the Imperial government when they had no
representation in the Imperial parliament. The government
said Yes. The colonies and the opposition at home said
No. As the colonies would not pay of their own accord,
and as the government did not see why they should be
parasites on the armed strength of the mother country,
parliament proceeded to tax them. They then refused to
pay under compulsion; and a complete deadlock ensued.
The personal factors in this perhaps insoluble problem
were still more refractory than the constitutional. All
the great questions of peace and war and other foreign
relations were settled by the mother country, which was
the only sovereign power and which alone possessed the
force to make any British rights respected. The Americans
supplied subordinate means and so became subordinate men
when they and the Imperial forces worked together. This,
to use a homely phrase, made their leaders feel out of
it. Everything that breeds trouble between militiamen
and regulars, colonials and mother-countrymen, fanned
the flame of colonial resentment till the leaders were
able to set their followers on fire. It was a leaders'
rebellion: there was no maddening cruelty or even
oppression such as those which have produced so many
revolutions elsewhere. It was a leaders' victory: there
was no general feeling that death or independence were
the only alternatives from the first. But as the fight
went on, and Loyalists and revolutionists grew more and
more bitter towards one another, the revolutionary
followers found the same cause for hating the Loyalists
as their leaders had found for hating the government.
Many of the Loyalists belonged to the well-educated and
well-to-do classes. So the envy and greed of the
revolutionary followers were added to the personal and
political rage of their leaders.
The British government had done its best for the Loyalists
in the treaty of peace and had urged Carleton, who needed
no urging in such a cause, to do his best as well. But
the treaty was made with the Congress; and the Congress
had no authority over the internal affairs of the thirteen
new states, each one of which could do as it liked with
its own envied and detested Loyalists. The revolutionists
wanted some tangible spoils. The safety of peace had made
the trimmers equally 'patriotic' and equally clamorous.
So the confiscation of Loyalist property soon became the
order of the day.
It was not the custom of that age to confiscate private
property simply because the owners were on the losing
side, still less to confiscate it under local instead of
national authority. But need, greed, and resentment were
stronger than any scruples. Need was the weakest, resentment
the strongest of all the animating motives. The American
army was in rags and its pay greatly in arrears while
the British forces under Carleton were fed, clothed, and
paid in the regular way. But it was the passionate
resentment of the revolutionists that perverted this
exasperating difference into another 'intolerable wrong.'
Washington was above such meaner measures. But when he
said the Loyalists were only fit for suicide, and when
Adams, another future president, said they ought to be
hanged, it is little wonder that lesser men thought the
time had come for legal looting. Those Loyalists who best
understood the temper of their late fellow-countrymen
left at once. They were right. Even to be a woman was no
protection against confiscation in the case of Mary
Phillips, sister-in-law to Beverley Robinson, a well-known
Loyalist who settled in New Brunswick after the Revolution.
Her case was not nearly so hard as many another. But her
historic love-affair makes it the most romantic.
Eight-and-twenty years before this General Braddock had
marched to death and defeat beside the Monongahela with
two handsome and gallant young aides-de-camp, Washington
and Morris. Both fell in love with bewitching Mary
Phillips. But, while Washington left her fancy-free,
Morris won her heart and hand. Now that the strife was
no longer against a foreign foe but between two British
parties, the former aides-de-camp found themselves rivals
in arms as well as love; for Colonel Morris was Carleton's
right-hand man in all that concerned the Loyalists, being
the official head of the department of Claims and Succour:
Morris, Morgan, and Carleton were the three busiest men
in New York. Forty thick manuscript volumes still show
Maurice Morgan's assiduous work as Carleton's confidential
secretary. But Morris had the more heart-breaking duty
of the three, with no relief, day after sorrow-laden day,
from the anguishing appeals of Loyalist widows, orphans,
and other ruined refugees. No sooner had the dire news
arrived that peace had been made with the Congress, and
that each of the thirteen United States was free to show
uncovenanted mercies towards its own Loyalists, than the
exodus began. Five thousand five hundred and ninety-three
Loyalists sailed for Halifax in the first convoy on the
17th of April with a strong recommendation from Carleton
to Governor Parr of Nova Scotia. 'Many of these are of
the first families and born to the fairest possessions.
I therefore beg that you will have them properly
considered.' Shipping was scarce; for the hostility of
the whole foreign naval world had made enormous demands
on the British navy and mercantile marine. So six thousand
Loyalists had to march overland to join Carleton's vessels
at New York, some of them from as far south as
Charlottesville, Virginia. They were carefully shepherded
by Colonel Alured Clarke, of whom we shall hear again.
Meanwhile Carleton and Washington had exchanged the usual
compliments on the conclusion of peace and had met each
other on the 6th of May at Tappan, where they discussed
the exchange of prisoners. By the terms of the treaty
the British were to evacuate New York, their last foothold
in the new republic, with all practicable dispatch; so,
as summer changed into autumn, the Congress became more
and more impatient to see the last of them. But Carleton
would not go without the Loyalists, whose many tributary
streams of misery were still flowing into New York. In
September, when the treaty of peace was ratified in
Europe, the Congress asked Carleton point-blank to name
the date of his own departure. But he replied that this
was impossible and that the more the Loyalists were
persecuted the longer he would be obliged to stay. The
correspondence between him and the Congress teems with
complaints and explanations. The Americans were very
anxious lest the Loyalists should take away any goods
and chattels not their own, particularly slaves. Carleton
was disposed to consider slaves as human beings, though
slavery was still the law in the British oversea dominions,
and so the Americans felt uneasy lest he might discriminate
between their slaves and other chattels. Reams of the
Carleton papers are covered with descriptive lists of
claimed and counter-claimed niggers--Julius Caesars,
Jupiters, Venuses, Dianas, and so on, who were either
'stout wenches' and 'likely fellows' or 'incurably lazy'
and 'old worn-outs.'
Perhaps, when a slave wished to remain British, and his
case was nicely balanced between the claimants and the
counter-claimants, Carleton was a little inclined to give
him the benefit of the doubt. But with other forms of
disputed property he was too severe to please all Loyalists.
A typical case of restitution in Canada will show how
differently the two governments viewed the rights of
private property. Mercier and Halsted, two Quebec rebels,
owned a wharf and the frame of a warehouse in 1775. It
was Arnold's intercepted letter to Mercier that gave
Carleton's lieutenant, Cramahe, the first warning of
danger from the south. Halsted was Major Caldwell's miller
at the time and took advantage of his position to give
his employer's flour to Arnold's army, in which he served
as commissary throughout the siege. Just after the peace
of 1783 Mercier and Halsted laid claim to their former
property, which they had abandoned for eight years and
on which the government had meanwhile built a provision
store, making use of the original frame. The case was
complicated by many details too long for notice here.
But the British government finally gave the two rebels
the original property, plus thirteen years' rent, less
the cost of government works erected in the meantime.
All the documents are still in Quebec.
Property was troublesome enough. But people were worse.
And Carleton's difficulties increased as the autumn wore
on. The first great harrying of the Loyalists drove more
than thirty thousand from their homes; and about twenty-five
thousand of these embarked at New York. Then there were
the remnants of twenty Loyalist corps to pension, settle,
or employ. There were also the British prisoners to
receive, besides ten thousand German mercenaries. Add to
all this the regular garrison and the general oversight
of every British interest in North America, from the
Floridas to Labrador, remember the implacable enemy in
front, and we may faintly imagine what Carleton had to
do before he could report that 'His Majesty's troops and
such remaining Loyalists as chose to emigrate were
successfully withdrawn on the 25th [of November] without
the smallest circumstance of irregularity.'
Thus ended one of the greatest acts in the drama of the
British Empire, the English-speaking peoples, or the
world; and thus, for the second time, Carleton, now in
his sixtieth year, apparently ended his own long service
in America. He had left Canada, after saving her from
obliteration, because, so long as he remained her governor,
the war minister at home remained her enemy. He had then
returned to serve in New York, and had stayed there to
the bitter end, because there was no other man whom the
new government would trust to command the rearguard of
the Empire in retreat.