for Enquiry into the Losses, etc._, London, 1815. Ryerson, ii. 159–182.
_Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson_, ii. 435–437. Sabine, i.
86–90. In March, 1784, the number of persons who had preferred their
petitions was 2,063, and the alleged losses £7,046,278, besides
outstanding debts in America amounting to £2,354,135. “In 1788 Mr. Pitt
submitted a plan for classifying the claimants, and of classifying
and apportioning the nature and amount of consolation to be allotted
to each; and to those whose losses had been caused principally by the
deprivation of official or professional incomes, he proposed a system
of pensions. By the 5th of April, this year (1790), the Commissioners
in England had heard and determined 1,680 claims, and had liquidated
the same at the sum of £1,887,548. It appeared, finally, that the
number of applicants from England, and from the Canadian provinces,
attained to the aggregate of 5,072, of which 954 either withdrew their
applications or failed to press them, and the sum of the losses is
stated to have been £8,026,045. Another return is made out by Mr.
J. E. Wilmot, one of the Commissioners, wherein the amount of the
claim is given as £10,358,413, and the amount of the claims allowed at
£3,033,091. The subject was again raised in Parliament in 1821, but
though there was much sympathy expressed for the sufferings of those
who had trusted to their country to recompense their fidelity, the
sympathy exhausted itself in words.” See also Lecky, _England in the
Eighteenth Century_, iv. 268. Curwen, 367, 368.
[177] Ryerson, ii. 127. _No. Am. Rev._, lix. 279. Hawkins, _Missions of
the Church of England_, 249. _The Frontier Missionary, or Life of the
Rev. Jacob Bailey_, by W. S. Bartlett, New York, 1853 (Collections of
the Protestant Episcopal Historical Society, vol. ii.). This work gives
a pathetic account of the hardships and privations undergone by the
exiles in Nova Scotia, as well as a graphic picture of the methods used
by the town committees in New England with those who adhered to the
cause of the king.
[178] Hawkins, _Missions_, 371–3. Ryerson, ii. 206. _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proceedings_, Oct., 1886, p. 95. For the treatment of the loyalists
in the United States after the treaty of peace, see especially Jones,
_Hist. New York_, vol. ii. Roberts, _Hist. of New York_, ii. 449 ff.
Lecky (_Hist. England in the Eighteenth Century_, iv. 267) remarks
rather sharply: “The loyalists to a great extent sprung from and
represented the old gentry of the country. The prospect of seizing
their property had been one great motive which induced many to enter
the war. The owners of the confiscated property now grasped the helm.
New men exercised the social influence of the old families, and they
naturally dreaded the restoration of those whom they had displaced.”
[179] _Vide supra_, Note 11.
[180] _No. Am. Rev._, lix. 262 (Sabine). Lecky’s tribute to the
loyalists may be added: “There were brave and honest men in America
who were proud of the great and free empire to which they belonged,
who had no desire to shrink from the burden of maintaining it, who
remembered with gratitude the English blood that had been shed around
Quebec and Montreal, and who, with nothing to hope for from the crown,
were prepared to face the most brutal mob violence and the invectives
of a scurrilous press, to risk their fortunes, their reputations, and
sometimes even their lives, in order to avert civil war and ultimate
separation. Most of them ended their days in poverty and exile, and
as the supporters of a beaten cause history has paid but a scanty
tribute to their memory, but they comprised some of the best and ablest
men America has ever produced, and they were contending for an ideal
which was at least as worthy as that for which Washington fought. The
maintenance of one free, industrial and pacific empire, comprising
the whole English race, may have been a dream, but it was at least a
noble one.” _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, iii. 418.
For historical notices of the loyalists in Canada, the following are
also useful: _Settlement of Upper Canada_ (1872), by William Canniff;
_Toronto of Old_ (1873), by Dr. H. Scadding; _Centennial of the
Settlement of Upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists, 1784–1884_;
_The Celebrations at Adolphustown, Toronto, and Niagara_, Toronto,
1885.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
The last footnote of the book (180) on page 210 had no anchor.
Transcriber added one at the end of the last paragraph on page 198.