_THE EXPULSION OF THE LOYALISTS AND THE SETTLEMENT OF CANADA._
The Huguenots and the proscribed of the French Revolution found
sanctuary as welcome guests in England and the English colonies.
The Moors were well treated when banished from Spain; the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes was civil death to all Huguenots; the Americans made
the treaty of peace of 1783 worse than civil death to all Loyalists.
The Americans, at the inception and birth of their republic, violated
every precept of Christianity and of a boasted civilization, even to
confiscating the estates of helpless women. For all time it is to be a
part of American history that the last decade of the eighteenth century
saw the most cruel and vindictive acts of spoliation recorded in modern
history.
At the treaty of peace, 1783, the banishment and extermination of the
Loyalists was a foregone conclusion. The bitterest words ever uttered by
Washington were in reference to them: "He could see nothing better for
them than to recommend suicide." Neither Congress nor state governments
made any recommendation that humane treatment should be meted out to
these Loyalists. John Adams had written from Amsterdam that he would
"have hanged his own brother had he taken part against him."[84]
[84] Address to the "United Empire Loyalists," by Edward Harris,
Toronto, 1897.
At the close of the war the mob were allowed to commit any outrage or
atrocity, while the authorities in each state remained apparently
indifferent. An example of Loyalist ill-treatment is to be found in a
letter written October 22, 1783, to a Boston friend, and preserved in
New York City manual, 1870:--
"The British are leaving New York every day, and last week there came
one of the d----d refugees from New York to a place called Wall Kill, in
order to make a tarry with his parents, where he was taken into custody
immediately. His head and eyebrows were shaved, tarred and feathered, a
hog-yoke put on his neck, and a cowbell thereon; upon his head a very
high hat and feathers were set, well plumed with tar, and a sheet of
paper in front with a man drawn with two faces, representing the traitor
Arnold and the devil."
Some American writers have been extremely severe upon Americans who
served in the royal armies. Such condemnation is certainly illogical and
unjust. They must have reasoned they were fighting to save their
country from mob rule, from the domination of demagogues and traitors,
and to preserve to it what, until then, all had agreed to be the
greatest of blessings, the connection with Great Britain, the privilege
of being Englishmen, heirs of all the free institutions which were
embodied in a "great and glorious constitution." If the Loyalists
reasoned in this manner, we cannot blame them, unless we are ready to
maintain the proposition that the cause of every revolution is
necessarily so sacred that those who do not sympathize with it should
abstain from opposing it.
Very early in the Revolution the disunionists tried to drive the
Loyalists into the rebel militia or into the Continental army by fines,
and by obliging them to hire substitutes. The families of men who had
fled from the country to escape implication in the impending war were
obliged to hire substitutes, and they were fined for the misdeeds of the
mercenary whom they had engaged. Fines were even imposed upon neutral
and unoffending persons for not preventing their families from entering
the British service. If the fines were refused, the property was
recklessly sold to the amount of the fine and costs of action. Loyalists
convicted of entering the enemy's lines could be fined as high as 2000
pounds, and even the unsuccessful attempt to enter might be punished by
a fine of 1000 pounds.[85] If the property of the offender failed to
answer for his offence, he became subject to corporal punishment,
whipping, branding, cropping of ears, and exposure in the pillory being
resorted to in some of the states.
[85] "Acts of New Jersey," Oct. 8, 1778, p. 60.
The Disunionists had early a covetous eye upon the property of the
Loyalists. The legislative bodies hastened to pass such laws as would
prevent those suspected of Loyalism from transferring their property,
real or personal, by real or pretended sale. Friends who tried to guard
the property of refugees nailed up the doors that led to the room
containing valuable furniture, but were obliged by bullying committeemen
to remove their barricades and give up their treasures.
The members of one wealthy refugee's family were reduced in their
housekeeping to broken chairs and teacups, and to dipping the water out
of an iron skillet into a pot, which they did as cheerfully as if they
were using a silver urn. The furniture had been removed, though the
family picture still hung in the blue room, and the harpsichord stood in
the passage way to be abused by the children who passed through. These
two aristocratic ladies were obliged to use their coach-house as a
dining-room, and the "fowl-house" as their bed chamber. The picture
continues: "In character the old lady looks as majestic even there, and
dresses with as much elegance as if she were in a palace."[86] This
mansion was General Putnam's headquarters at the battle of Bunker Hill,
and was afterward confiscated.
[86] James Murray, Loyalist, p. 245, 253.
When the treaty of peace was signed, the question of amnesty and
compensation for the Loyalists was long and bitterly discussed. Even
the French minister had urged it. John Adams, one of the commission,
favored compensating "the wretches, how little soever they deserved it,
nay, how much soever they deserve the contrary."[87]
[87] John Adams' Works, Vol. IX., p. 516.
The commission hesitated "to saddle" America with the Loyalists because
they feared the opposition at home, especially by the individual states.
The British demand had been finally met with the mere promise that
Congress would recommend to the states a conciliatory policy with
reference to the Loyalists. This solution neither satisfied the
Loyalists nor the more chivalrous Englishmen. They declared that the
provision concerning the Loyalists was "precipitate, impolitic," and
cruelly neglectful of their American friends.[88] But all of this
cavilling was unreasonable and hasty, for England had gotten for the
Loyalists the utmost attainable in the treaty, and later proved
honorable and generous in the highest degree by compensating the
Loyalists out of her own treasury--an act only excelled in the next
century by the purchase and emancipation of all the slaves in the
British Empire, for which the people of Great Britain taxed only
themselves--the most generous act ever performed by any nation in the
history of mankind.
[88] Stevens' "Facsimiles," 1054.
In spite of the recommendation of Congress which had been made in
accordance with the terms of the treaty, confiscation still went on
actively. Governors of the states were urged to exchange lists of
proscribed persons, that no Loyalists might find a resting-place in the
United States, and in every state they were disfranchised, while in many
localities they were tarred and feathered, driven from town and warned
never to return again. Some were murdered and maltreated in the most
horrible manner. Thousands of inconspicuous Loyalists did, nevertheless,
succeed in remaining in the larger cities, where their identity was
lost, and they were not the objects of jealous social and political
exclusion as in the small town. In some localities where they were in
the majority, the hostile minority was not able to wreak its vengeance.
With the treaty of peace there came a rush for British American
territory. The numbers were increased in Canada to some 25,000 during
the next few years, and those in Nova Scotia and other British territory
swelled the number to 60,000.
Most of these exiles became, in one way or another, a temporary expense
to the British government, and the burden was borne honorably and
ungrudgingly. The care began during the war. The Loyalists who aided
Burgoyne were provided with homes in Canada, and before the close of
1779 nearly a thousand refugees were cared for in houses and barracks
and given fuel, household furniture, and even pensioned with money.
After the peace, thousands of exiles at once turned to the British
government for temporary support. The vast majority had lost but little,
and asked only for land and supplies to start life with. The minority
who had lost lands, offices and incomes, demanded indemnity. As for the
members of the humbler class, the government ordered that there should
be given 500 acres of land to heads of families, 300 acres to single
men, and each township in the new settlements was to have 2000 acres for
church purposes and 1000 for schools. Building material and tools, an
axe, spade, hoe and plow, were furnished each head of a family. Even
clothing and food were issued to the needy, and as late as 1785 there
were 26,000 entitled to rations. Communities were equipped with
grindstones and the machinery for grist and saw mills. In this way
$5,000,000 were spent to get Nova Scotia well started, and in Upper
Canada, besides the three million acres given to the Loyalist, some
$4,000,000 were expended for this benefit before 1787.
But there was a far greater burden assumed by the British government in
granting the compensation asked for by those who had sacrificed
everything to their loyalty. Those who had lost offices or professional
practice were, in many cases, cared for by the gift of lucrative offices
under the government, and Loyalist military officers were put on half
pay. It is said with truth that the defeated government dealt with the
exiled and fugitive Loyalists with a far greater liberality than the
United States bestowed upon their victorious army.
After the peace, over five thousand Loyalists submitted claims for
losses, usually through agents appointed by the refugees from each
American colony. In July of 1783, a commission of five members was
appointed by Parliament to classify the losses and services of the
Loyalists. They examined the claims with an impartial and judicial
severity. The claimant entered the room alone with the commissioners
and, after telling his services and losses, was rigidly questioned
concerning fellow claimants as well as himself. The claimant then
submitted a written and sworn statement of his losses. After the results
of both examinations were critically scrutinized, the judges made the
award. In the whole course of their work, they examined claims to the
amount of forty million of dollars, and ordered nineteen millions to be
paid.
If to the cost of establishing the Loyalists in Nova Scotia and Canada
we add the compensation granted in money, the total amount expended by
the British government for their American adherents was at least thirty
million dollars. There is evidence that the greatest care that human
ingenuity could devise was exercised to make all these awards in a fair
and equitable manner. The members of the commission were of
unimpeachable honesty. Nevertheless there was much complaint by the
Loyalists because of the partial failure of giving the loyal exiles a
new start in life. The task was no easy one--to transfer a disheartened
people to a strange land and a trying climate, and let them begin life
anew. But when, years later, they had made of the land of this exile a
mighty member of the British empire, they began to glory in the days of
trial through which they had passed.
At a council meeting held at Quebec, November 9, 1789, an order was
passed for "preserving a register of the Loyalists that had adhered to
the unity of the empire, and joined the Royal Standard previous to the
treaty of peace in 1783, to the end that their posterity may be
distinguished from future settlers in the rank, registers, and rolls of
the militia of their respective districts, as proper objects for
preserving and showing the fidelity and conduct so honorable to their
ancestors for distinguished benefit and privileges."
Today their descendants are organized as the United Empire Loyalists,
and count it an honor that their ancestors suffered persecution and
exile rather than yield the principle and idea of union with Great
Britain.
The cause of the Loyalists failed, but their stand was a natural one and
was just and noble. They were the prosperous and contended men--the men
without a grievance. Conservatism was the only policy that one could
expect of them. Men do not rebel to rid themselves of prosperity.
Prosperous men seek to conceive prosperity. The Loyalist obeyed his
nature, but as events proved, chose the ill-fated cause, and when the
struggle ended, his prosperity had fled, and he was an outcast and an
exile.
If, when George III. and his government recognized the independence of
the thirteen colonies, the Loyalists had been permitted to remain here
and become, if they would, American citizens, the probabilities are
that, long before this time, an expansion would have taken place in the
national domain which would have brought under its control the entire
American continent north of the United States, an extension brought
about in an entirely peaceful and satisfactory manner. The method of
exclusion adopted peopled Canada, so far as its English-speaking
inhabitants were concerned, with those who went from the United States
as political exiles, and who carried with them to their new homes an
ever-burning sense of personal wrong and a bitter hatred of those who
had abused them.
The indifference shown to treaty obligations by Congress and the states,
and the secret determination to eradicate everything British from the
country, is now known to have been the deliberate, well-considered
policy of the founders of the Republic.
This old legacy of wrongdoing has been a barrier in the way of a
healthful northern development of the United States. The contentions
which gave rise to these hostile feelings have been forgotten, but the
feelings themselves have long outlived the causes which gave rise to
them.