Egerton Ryerson

“ I always look back on these early acts of the English nation with the fathers of this growing Canada with pleasure, and I venerate the memory of those true and noble-hearted men, who loved their fatherland so well that they even preferred to live under the protection of her flag in the wild woods of Canada, and endure hunger and want, than enjoy the comforts of home under the banner of a rebellious but now independent people. ”

“ The United Empire Loyalists of those times were not permitted to speak for themselves, and their principles, character and acts were only known from the pens of their adversaries. Had the heart of America been allowed to speak and act, there would have been no alliance of America, France, and Spain against England; the American colonies would have achieved their own noblest freedom unstained by future bloodshed, and untainted by so unnatural an alliance ”

“ I never shall own the justice of taxing America internally until she enjoys the right of representation. In every other point of legislation the authority of Parliament is like the north star, fixed for the reciprocal benefit of the parent country and her colonies. The British Parliament, as the supreme gathering and legislative power, has always bound them by her laws, by her regulations of their trade and manufactures, and even in the more absolute interdiction of both. ”

“ When I see that all petitions and complaints of grievances are so odious to Government that even the mere pipe which conveys them becomes obnoxious, I am at a loss to know how peace and union is to be maintained or restored between the different parts of the empire. Grievances cannot be redressed unless they are known; and they cannot be known but through complaints and petitions. If these are deemed affronts, and the messengers punished as offenders, who will henceforth send petitions? and who will deliver them? It has been thought a dangerous thing in any State to stop up the vent of griefs. ”

“ The States-General of the Netherlands had no constitutional doubt about imposing duties on their outlying colonies. To England exclusively belongs the honour that between her and her colonies the question of right could arise; it is still more to her glory, as well as to her happiness and freedom, that in that contest her success was not possible. Her principles, her traditions, her liberty, her constitution, all forbade that arbitrary rule should become her characteristic. The shaft aimed at her new colonial policy was tipped with a feather from her own wing. ”

“ After many years of anxious study and reflection, I have a strong conviction that the Declaration of American Independence, in 1776, was a great mistake in itself, a great calamity to America as well as to England, a great injustice to many thousands on both sides of the Atlantic, a great loss of human life, a great blow to the real liberties of mankind, and a great impediment to the highest Christian and Anglo-Saxon civilization among the nations of the world. ”

“ Even the ancient and traditional disaffection of Massachusetts to England had dissolved into feelings of gratitude and respect and avowed loyalty. Indeed, loyalty and attachment to England, and pride in the British Constitution, was the universal feeling of the American colonies at the close of the war which secured North America to England, and for the triumphant termination of which the American colonies had raised and equipped no less than twenty-five thousand men, without whose services the war could not have been accomplished. ”

“ The war between Great Britain and the United States, from 1812 to 1815, furnishes the strongest example of the present century, or of any age or country, of the attachment of a people to their mother country, and of their determination, at whatever sacrifice and against whatever disparity, to maintain the national life of their connection with it. The true spirit of the Loyalists of America was never exhibited with greater force and brilliancy than during the war of 1812-1815. ”

“ But what were not the claims of those who, in conformity to their allegiance, their cheerful obedience to the voice of Parliament, their confidence in the proclamation of our generals, invited under every assurance of military, parliamentary, political, and affectionate protection, espoused with the hazard of their lives, and the forfeiture of their properties, the cause of Great Britain? I cannot but feel for men thus sacrificed for their bravery and principles—men who have sacrificed all the dearest possessions of the human heart. ”

“ They conclude their address to their fellow-subjects in Great Britain in the following words:
"We believe there is yet much virtue, much justice, and much public spirit in the English nation. To that justice we now appeal. You have been told that we are seditious, impatient of government, and desirous of independence. Be assured that these are not facts, but calumnies. Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness; and we shall ever be ready to contribute all in our power to the welfare of the empire. ”

“ It is also plain that in the case supposed they would have equally shared in our pride and glory at the wondrous growth of the Anglo-Saxon race—that race undivided and entire, extending its branches as now to the furthest regions of the earth, yet all retaining their connection with the parent stem—all its members bound by the same laws, all animated by the same loyalty, and all tending to the same public-spirited aim. How great a nation should we and they be together!—how great in the arts both of peace and war! ”

“ If the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain be pursued, and the savages are let loose to murder our citizens, and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. The first stroke of the tomahawk, the first attempt with the scalping knife, will be the signal of one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man found fighting by the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner—instant death will be his lot. ”

“ Ungrateful people of America! When I had the honour to serve the Crown, while you yourselves were loaded with an enormous debt of one hundred and forty millions sterling, and paid a revenue of ten millions sterling, you have given bounties on their timber, on their iron, their hemp, and many other articles. You have restored in their favour the Act of Navigation, that palladium of British commerce. I offered to do everything in my power to advance the trade of America. I discouraged no trade but what was prohibited by Act of Parliament. ”

“ He thought the declaration of France no obstacle to his views, but rather an instrument for their support. He conceived that the treaty of alliance concluded by the envoys of the Congress with the Court of Versailles might tend beyond any other cause to rekindle British feelings in the hearts of the Americans. Were the glories of Wolfe and Amherst, in which they had partaken, altogether blotted from their minds? Would the soldier-yeomen of the colonies be willing to fight side by side with those French whom, till within fifteen years, they had found in Canada their bitter hereditary foes? ”

“ From the beginning the Loyalists were deprived of the freedom of the press, freedom of assemblage, and under an espionage universal, sleepless, malignant—subjecting the Loyalists to every species of insult, to arrest and imprisonment at any moment, and to the seizure and confiscation of their property. ”

“ Separated by an immense ocean and an extensive wilderness from Great Britain, you have no participation in her councils, nor interest in her conduct. You have felt her tyranny; you have seen her injustice; but I do not ask you to avenge the one, or to redress the other. The United States are sufficiently powerful to afford every security consistent with their and your expectations. I tender you the invaluable blessings of civil, religious, and political liberty, and their necessary result—individual and general prosperity ”

“ Volunteers!—I esteem your generous and patriotic motives. You have made sacrifices on the altar of your country. You will not suffer the enemies of your fame to mislead you from the path of duty and honour, and deprive you of the esteem of a grateful country. You will show the eternal infamy that awaits the man who, having come in sight of the enemy, basely shrinks in the moment of trial. ”

“ Yet, upon the whole, the war did much good to Canada, apart from the success of its arms; it tended to cement the people together as one family; English, French, Scotch, Irish, and Americans had forgotten former distinctions and jealousies, and had all become Canadians, with increased devotion not only to the land of their nativity or adoption, but to the glorious mother country which had become the victorious champion of the liberties of Europe, and leader in the civilization of mankind. ”

“ In the House of Lords, Lord Mansfield, replying to Lord Camden, said: "The noble lord who quoted so much law, and denied the right of the Parliament of Great Britain to levy internal taxes upon the colonies, allowed at the same time that restrictions upon trade and duties upon the ports were legal. But I cannot see any real difference in this distinction; for I hold it to be true, that a tax laid in any place is like a pebble falling into and making a circle in a lake, till one circle produces and gives motion to another, and the whole circumference is agitated from the centre. ”

“ In April, 1776, three months before the Declaration of Independence, the inquiry was made of Franklin, "When is the Continental Congress by general consent to be formed into a Supreme Legislature?" He replied, "Nothing seems wanting but that general consent. The novelty of the thing deters some; the doubt of success, others; the vain hope of reconciliation, many. Every day furnishes us with new causes of increasing enmity, and new reasons for wishing an eternal separation; so that there is a rapid increase of the formerly small party who were for an independent government." ”

“ Whatever may be said of this unfortunate war, either to account for, to justify, or to apologize for the conduct of either country, all the world has been unanimous in applauding the virtue and humanity of Great Britain in rewarding the services, and in compensating, with a liberal hand, the losses of those who suffered so much for their firm and faithful adherence to the British Government. ”

“ We turn with joy to you, many of whom have already risked your lives for the unity of the empire. We are confident that the same spirit still animates your breasts and those of your children—that you still retain the same love of your excellent King, the same veneration for a free and happy Constitution, that you exhibited during the American war. ”

“ The Americans think that they have, in return to all their applications, experienced a temper and disposition that is unfriendly—that the enjoyment and exercise of the common rights of freemen have been refused to them. Never with these views will they solicit the favour of this House; never more will they wish to bring before Parliament the grievances under which they conceive themselves to labour. Deeply as they feel, they suffer and endure with alarming silence. For their liberty they are under no apprehensions. ”

“ No government is more odious and oppressive than that which has the mockery of the form of free government without its powers or attributes. An individual despot may be reached, terrified, or persuaded, but a despotic oligarchy has no restraint of individual responsibility, and is as intangible in its individuality as it is grasping and heartless in its acts and policy. ”

“ If the dictates of reason, duty, justice, and humanity, cannot prevent the employment of a force which respects no rights, and knows no wrongs, it will be prevented by a severe and relentless system of retaliation.
"I doubt not your courage and firmness. I will not doubt your attachment to liberty. If you tender your services voluntarily, they will be accepted readily. The United States offer you peace, liberty, and security. Your chance lies between these and war, slavery, and destruction. ”

“ In answer to the questions which your Excellency has proposed with seeming emotion, we beg leave to declare, that we will not suffer ourselves to be in the least influenced by party animosities or domestic feuds, let them exist where they may; that if we can possibly prevent it, this fine country shall never be ruined by any person; that it shall be through no default of ours should this people be deprived of the great and manifest advantages which the favour and indulgence of our most gracious Sovereign and his Parliament are even now providing for them. ”