negotiations for peace full of sympathy for the loyalists and resolved
to make their cause the cause of England; but when, to his attempts to
obtain for them the restoration of their property and the abolition of
penal laws, was opposed a steady _non possumus_, his enthusiasm for his
persecuted fellow-countrymen waned; and when at last it was plainly
suggested to him that a year’s prolongation of the war would cost
more than all the loyalists’ property put together, he consented to
accept the assurance, the futility and emptiness of which was evident
upon the face of it, that “Congress shall earnestly recommend” to the
several states to repeal the laws of attainder and confiscation which
had been passed against the Tories and their property. One of the
American negotiators brusquely remarked that it was better and more
proper that the loyalists should be compensated by their friends than
by their enemies. This desertion of their interests almost broke the
hearts of some of the best and most public-spirited of the loyalists,
who had given up everything for the cause of their country, and now
saw themselves consigned to poverty in their old age, or at the best
to supplicating aid of the British government and being exposed to
all “the insolence of office and the scorns that patient merit of the
unworthy takes.”[175]
It took a long time to adjust the claims and to distribute the bounty
which was doled out by unwilling officials. It was 1783 when the war
closed, but not until 1790 was the indemnity paid out to the claimants;
and then England forced her unfortunate pensioners, made paupers by
their trust in her, to accept about £3,300,000 for losses reckoned at
over £8,000,000. It is estimated that over a thousand claimants had in
the mean time perished in want and penury. Those were on the whole more
fortunate, as events proved, who had braved it out in America than were
those who had trusted to the gratitude of England.[176]
What was the loss of America was the gain to her nearest neighbors,
the coast provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. As early as 1775
the exodus from Boston to Halifax had begun; and when Howe evacuated
the city, a large number of loyalists took refuge with the fleet and
army, and leaving all behind came to Halifax to seek their fortunes
under another sky. From that time on, throughout the war, Halifax was
the haven of refuge for persecuted loyalists.[177] At the evacuation
of New York and Savannah no fewer than 30,000 persons left the United
States for Nova Scotia. Halifax was so crowded that houses could not
be had at any price, and provisions were held at famine prices.[178]
From northern New York and Vermont the loyalists crossed over into
Upper Canada and laid the foundation of that prosperous province under
the vigorous government of Governor Simcoe, who during the war had
commanded a regiment of loyalist rangers which had done efficient
service.[179] With many a suffering, many a privation, these exiles for
conscience’ sake toiled to make homes for themselves in the wilderness,
and it is to them that the development of those provinces is due.
Familiar New England names meet one at every turn in these provinces,
especially in Nova Scotia. Dr. Inglis of Trinity Church, New York, was
the first bishop, and Judge Sewall of Massachusetts, the first chief
justice there. The harshness of the laws and the greed of the new
commonwealths thus drove into exile men who could be ill spared, and
whose absence showed itself in the lack of balance and of political
steadiness that characterized the early history of the Republic. This,
moreover, perpetuated a traditional dislike, grudge, and suspicion
between the people of the United States and their nearest neighbors,
men of the same blood and the same speech; while the new-founded
colonies, composed almost exclusively of conservatives, were naturally
slow, if sure, in their development.
This dislike and suspicion is now fortunately diminishing with the
lapse of years, but it was a great pity it ever was created. The men
who were willing to give up home, friends, and property for an idea,
are not men to be despised or laughed at, as was the fashion of the
generation which roared with delight over the coarse buffooneries of
Trumbull’s McFingal. They are rather men for us to claim with pride,
and to honor as Americans, Americans who were true to their convictions
of duty, confessors for their political faith.
Sabine relates the following conversation:
“‘Why did you come here, when you and your associates were almost
certain to endure the sufferings and absolute want of shelter and food
which you have now narrated?’ asked an American gentleman of one of the
first settlers of St. John, New Brunswick, a man whose life ... was
without a stain. ‘Why did we come here?’ replied he, with emotion that
brought tears;--‘for our loyalty; think you that our principles were
not as dear to us as were yours to you?’”[180]
NOTES.
[152] Franklin’s _Memoirs_ (London, 1818, p. 201), (Sparks, p. 176).
“In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, a congress of
commissioners from the different colonies was by an order of the lords
of trade to be assembled in Albany; there to confer with the chiefs of
the six nations, concerning the means of defending both their country
and ours.
We met the other commissioners at Albany about the middle of June. In
our way thither I projected and drew up a plan for the union of all
the colonies under one government, so far as might be necessary for
defence, and other important general purposes. As we passed through
New York, I had there shown my project to Mr. James Alexander and
Mr. Kennedy, two gentlemen of great knowledge in public affairs, and
being fortified by their approbation, I ventured to lay it before
the congress. It then appeared that several of the commissioners had
formed plans of the same kind. A previous question was first taken,
whether a union should be established, which passed in the affirmative,
unanimously. A committee was then appointed, one member from each
colony, to consider the several plans and report. Mine happened to
be preferred, and with a few amendments was accordingly reported. By
this plan the general government was to be administered by a President
General appointed and supported by the Crown; and a grand Council to
be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies
met in their respective assemblies. The debates upon it in congress
went on daily hand in hand with the Indian business. Many objections
and difficulties were started, but at length they were all overcome,
and the plan was unanimously agreed to, and copies ordered to be
transmitted to the board of trade and to the assemblies of the several
provinces. Its fate was singular: the assemblies did not adopt it, as
they all thought there was too much prerogative in it; and in England
it was judged to have too much of the democratic. The different and
contrary reasons of dislike to my plan make me suspect that it was
really the true medium: and I am still of opinion it would have been
happy for both sides if it had been adopted. The colonies so united
would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves:
there would then have been no need of troops from England; of course
the subsequent pretext for taxing America, and the bloody contest it
occasioned, would have been avoided.”
The plan proposed may be found in Franklin’s _Works_ (Sparks, i. 36),
(London, 1833, v. 299); _N. Y. Col. Doc._, vi. 889. The proceedings
of the Congress in _N. Y. Col. Doc._, vi. 853, other accounts of
the Congress by members; Hutchinson, _Hist. Mass. Bay_, iii. 19–25;
William Smith, _History of New York_, ii. 180; Stephen Hopkins, _A
true representation of the plan formed at Albany (in 1754) for uniting
all the British northern Colonies, in order to their common safety and
defence_ (_R. I. Historical Tracts_, No. 9). For an excellent brief
statement of the attempts at consolidation and plans suggested for that
purpose, see Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of the U. S._, v.
611.
[153] The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
was founded in 1701. A previous organization bearing a similar name
had been founded during the period of the Commonwealth, especially for
work among the aborigines in New England, and it is to this association
that we owe that most interesting of missionary relics, Eliot’s Indian
Bible. Great interest was taken in this by the celebrated Robert
Boyle, and scholarships were endowed by Sir Leoline Jenkyns in Jesus
College, Oxford, one condition of which was that the beneficiary should
devote his life after taking his degree to missionary work in the
plantations. The reports of Commissary Bray, who had been sent out to
Maryland, of the spiritual destitution of the American colonies and of
the difficulties under which the ministers of the Church of England
labored, led to the organization and incorporation of the Society,
which has been from that day to this an active agency in the spread of
religion and knowledge in the colonies of Great Britain. Humphreys,
_Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel_.
Hawkins, _Missions of the Church of England_.
[154] For a full account of this most interesting revolution, see E.
Edwards Beardsley, D. D., _The History of the Church in Connecticut_.
See also _Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D. D._, and _Yale
College and the Church_ (_History of the American Episcopal Church_,
vol. i. 561). Humphreys, _Historical Account_, 339.
[155] Franklin’s _Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. 218, 220. An amusing instance
of the prevailing ignorance in regard to American affairs even among
its friends is given by Benjamin Vaughan in a note in Franklin’s
_Memoirs_, vol. v. p. 320. “To guard against the incursions of the
Indians a plan was sent over to America (and, as I think, by authority)
suggesting the expediency of clearing away the woods and bushes from
a tract of land, a mile in breadth, and extending along the back of
the colonies.” It is said that this plan was the contribution of Dean
Tucker towards the solution of the Indian problem of the day.
[156] Jones, _Hist. New York_, ii. 291, 559. _Political Magazine_,
Apr., 1780. Hutchinson, _History Mass. Bay_, iii. 86–88, 166 _note_,
254, 293. Hutchinson’s _Diary_, i. 65. For reasons assigned by
Hutchinson for the patriotism of John Adams, _Hist._ iii. 297.
[157] _North American Review_, lix. p. 270 (Sabine). “It may be
asked, why, when the oppressions of the mother country were so very
flagrant and apparent, there was not greater unanimity than appears
to have existed; and why a party, so large in numbers, which in
so many colonies included persons so respectable, and hitherto so
universally esteemed, was seemingly, or in fact, averse to breaking
away from British dominion. These questions have been put to loyalists
themselves. They have answered, that, upon the original formation of
parties, they were generally regarded as the common organizations of
the ins and outs; the one striving to retain, and the other to gain,
patronage and place; and that the mass in taking sides with or against
the royal governors, were stimulated by the hopes which politicians
have always been able to excite in their followers.”
[158] Moore’s _Diary of the American Revolution_, i. 37–52, 138.
_Massachutensis_, Letters I., III., IV. Hutchinson, _History of Mass.
Bay_, iii. passim. A. W. Farmer, _The Congress Canvassed_, p. 8. The
name Tory was given first in 1763, as a title of reproach to officers
of the crown and such as were for keeping up their authority. _Hist.
Mass. Bay_, iii. 103.
[159] Adams’s _Works_, ii. 362.
[160] For the manner in which the temperate remonstrance of the loyal
colony of New York was treated, see _Parliamentary Register_, vol. i.
467–478.
[161] A specimen from a comparatively moderate article upon the
loyalists may serve to substantiate the statement of the text (_No.
Am. Rev._, lxv. p. 142): “The meanest, most dastardly, and most cruel
scenes and deeds of the Revolution were enacted as the proper fruits
of a civil war by a large majority of the Tories, who remained at
home, and who, as regulars, as volunteers, in gangs, or as individual
outlaws, were the instigators of nearly every foul and atrocious act in
the whole strife. It is from these, the majority of the whole number,
that the name of Tory has received its hateful associations, which will
cling to it to the end of time. A class that includes an Arnold and
a Butler can never hope for complete redemption, at least so long as
Judas remains in ‘his own place.’”
One is glad to appeal from this intemperate and exaggerated language
to the essay upon the loyalists by Dr. George E. Ellis, in Winsor’s
_Narrative and Critical History_, vol. vii. It would be as undesirable
as it is unnecessary to supply, as could readily be done, instances of
gross cruelty and barbarity inflicted by the Whigs upon the unfortunate
loyalists “who remained at home.” The Correspondence of Lord Cornwallis
gives a most painful picture of the condition of things in the South
(_Corr._, i. 73), and the letters of Count Fersen, who cannot be
suspected of prejudice, reveal the hardly less savage condition of
affairs in the North. He says, for example, of Rhode Island (_Letters_,
i. 40, 41):
“C’est un pays qui sera fort heureux s’il jouit d’une paix longue,
et si les deux partis qui le divisent à present ne lui font subir le
sort de la Pologne et de tant d’autres républiques. Ces deux partes
sont appelés les Whigs et les Torys. Le premier est entièrement pour
la liberté et l’independance; il est composé de gens de la plus basse
extraction qui ne possédent point de biens; la plupart des habitants de
la compagne en sont. Les Torys sont pour les Anglais, ou, pour mieux
dire, pour la paix, sans trop se soucier d’être libres ou dépendants;
ce sont les gens d’une classe plus distinguée, les seuls qui eussent
des biens dans le pays. Lorsque les Whigs sont les plus forts, ils
pillent les autres tant qu’ils peuvent.”
[162] Simcoe, Lt.-Col. J. G., _A History of the Operations of a
Partisan Corps called the Queen’s Rangers, commanded by Lt.-Col. J. G.
Simcoe, during the war of the American Revolution_. New York: Bartlett
and Welford, 1884, 8vo, pp. 328.
[163] The Americans made several attempts to make use of the Indians:
Montgomery used them in his Canadian expedition; they were in the New
England army which laid siege to Boston; in April, 1776, Washington
wrote to Congress urging their employment in the army, and reported
on July 13th that, without special authority, he had directed General
Schuyler to engage the Six Nations on the best terms he and his
colleagues could procure; and again, submitting the propriety of
engaging the Eastern Indians. John Adams thought “we need not be so
delicate as to refuse me assistance of Indians, provided we cannot keep
them neutral.” A treaty was exchanged with the Eastern Indians on July
17, 1776, whereby they agreed to furnish six hundred Indians for a
regiment which was to be officered by the whites. As a result of this,
the Massachusetts Council subsequently reported that seven Penobscot
Indians, all that could be procured, were enlisted in October for one
year; and in November Major Shaw reported with a few Indians who had
enlisted in the Continental service. Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._,
vol. vi. 656, 657. The following brief entry in a diary will show that
even among the patriot forces savage customs sometimes found place: “On
Monday the 30th sent out a party for some dead Indians. Toward morning
found them, and skinned two of them from their hips down for boot legs:
one pair for the major, the other for myself.” _Proceedings N. J. Hist.
Soc._, ii. p. 31.
[164] _North American Review_, lix. 264 (Sabine). “The opponents of
the Revolution were powerful in all the thirteen colonies; in some of
them they were nearly if not quite equal in number to its friends the
Whigs. On the departure of Hutchinson he was addressed by upwards of
two hundred merchants, lawyers and other citizens of Boston, Salem and
Marblehead. On arrival of Gage, forty-eight from Salem presented their
dutiful respects; on his retirement he received the ‘Loyal address
from gentlemen and principal inhabitants of Boston’ to the number of
ninety-seven, and eighteen country gentlemen and official personages
who had taken refuge in Boston.” ...
* * * * *
“The division of parties in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire
was much the same as in Massachusetts. New York was the loyalists’
stronghold, and contained more of them than any colony in America.
While proof to sustain this assertion can be adduced to almost any
extent, we shall cite but a single though conclusive fact; namely,
that soon after the close of the war the Assembly of that State passed
a bill prohibiting adherents of the crown from holding office, which
was objected to and returned by the Council of Revision, who, among
other reasons for their course, stated, that if it were suffered
to become a law, there would be difficulty, and in some places an
impossibility, of finding men of different political sympathies,
even to conduct the elections. In some of the southern colonies, the
loyalists were almost as numerous as in New York. In the Carolinas it
may be hard to determine which party had the majority; and it will
be found that there were occasions when the royal generals obtained
twelve or fifteen hundred recruits among the inhabitants, merely by
issuing a proclamation or call upon them to stand by their allegiance
to “the best of sovereigns.... Few of the Carolinians would enlist
under the American banner; but after the capitulation (of Charlestown)
they flocked to the royal standard by hundreds.” See also Sabine’s
_Loyalists_, Introductory Sketch; Ryerson, _Loyalists of America_, ii.
57, 124. For remarks on the war, as a civil war, see Ramsay, _Hist.
U. S._, ii. 467–9.
[165] Sabine, i. 65.
[166] A. W. Farmer, _The Congress Canvassed_, pp. 17–19, exhibits the
manner in which delegates to Congress were chosen in New York. “The New
York City committee (a self-appointed body) applied to the supervisors
in the several counties to call the people together and to choose
committees, which committees were to meet in one grand committee; and
this grand committee of committees were to choose the delegates for
the county or to declare their approbation of the New York delegates,
and if any county did not meet and choose their committee it was to
be taken for granted that they acquiesced in the New York choice.”
Again as to delegates chosen by the Assemblies: “The Assembly has no
legal right to act by itself and claim to represent the people in so
doing. The people are not bound by any act of their representatives
till it hath received the approbation of the other branches of the
legislature. Delegates so appointed are, at best, but delegates of
delegates, but representatives of representatives. When therefore the
delegates at Philadelphia, in the preamble to their Bill of Rights, and
in their letter to his Excellency General Gage, stiled their body ‘a
full and free representation of ... all the Colonies from Nova Scotia
to Georgia,’ they were guilty of a piece of impudence which was never
equalled since the world began, and never will be exceeded while it
shall continue.” Again: “No provincial legislature (even if complete)
can give them such powers as were lately exercised at Philadelphia.
The legislative authority of the province cannot extend further than
the province extends. None of its acts are binding one inch beyond its
limits. How then can it give authority to a few persons, to make rules
and laws for the whole continent?... Before such a mode of legislation
can take place, the constitution of our colonies must be subverted and
their present independency on one another must be annihilated.”
The logic of the loyalist writers is unanswerable, and their legal
reasoning is usually correct and precise; the fallacy of their
position was that they were in face of a revolution. Elements had been
introduced into the struggle which, like the presence of an infinite
quantity in an equation, vitiated the reasoning, however correct the
process may have been. The author argues, for example: “To talk of
subjection to the King of Great Britain, while we disclaim submission
to the Parliament of Great Britain, is idle and ridiculous. It is
a distinction made by the American Republicans to serve their own
rebellious purposes, a gilding with which they have enclosed the pill
of sedition, to entice the unwary colonists to swallow it the more
readily down. The King of Great Britain was placed on the throne by
virtue of an Act of Parliament: And he is king of America, by virtue
of being king of Great Britain. He is therefore king of America by Act
of Parliament. And if we disclaim that authority which made him our
king, we, in fact, reject him from being our king, for we disclaim
that authority by which he is king at all.” It may be noticed that the
fundamental Whig doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament, which is here
so strongly urged, was never understood or appreciated by those who
called themselves Whigs in America.
[167] _Clinton-Cornwallis Correspondence_, i. pp. 263, 265.
[168] _Clinton-Cornwallis Correspondence_, ii. pp. 308, 309.
[169] Jones, Thomas, _History of New York_, i. 362–3, 172–176.
[170] _Christian Examiner_, viii. pp. 127, 128 (Dabney). Curwen,
_Journal_, 475, 479.
[171] Sabine, _North American Review_, lix. pp. 287, 288. _Loyalists_,
i. 71–81. Ryerson, _Loyalists of America_, ii. 130, 136.
[172] _No. Am. Rev._, lix. p. 289.
[173] _The Journal and Letters of the late Samuel Curwen_, New York and
Boston, 1842, p. 147.
[174] _Parliamentary History_, vol. xxiii. 411, 412, 430, 481. The
following extracts may be added to those given in the text; Mr. Burke
said: “Better to have left the whole to future negotiation, and to
have been totally silent upon the subject in the treaty, than to have
consented to have set our hands to a gross libel on the national
character, and in our flagitious article plunged the dagger into the
hearts of the loyalists, and manifested our own impotency, ingratitude
and disgrace” (p. 468). In the same debate Mr. Lee said: “Europe,
Asia, Africa and America beheld the dismembership and diminution of
the British Empire. But this, alarming and calamitous as it was, was
nothing when put in competition with another of the crimes of the
present peace, the cession of men into the hands of their enemies, and
delivering over to confiscation, tyranny, resentment and oppression the
unhappy men who trusted to our fair promises and deceitful words. This
was the great ground of his objection: and he called it a disgraceful,
wicked and treacherous peace; inadequate to its object, and such as no
man could vote to be honorable without delivering his character over to
damnation for ever” (p. 492).
[175] Ryerson, ii. 64. Curwen’s _Journal_, 367. Jones, _History of
N. Y._, ii. The bitterness of the mortification, and resentment at the
treatment they had received from the hands of their friends, is well
exhibited in Judge Jones’s remarkable work, which, however trustworthy
or the reverse it may be in other respects, may be followed implicitly
as an exhibition of loyalist feeling towards the mother country.