United Empire Loyalists

“ In the second place that very conservatism which made the Loyalists draw back from revolution hindered them from taking arms until the king gave them commissions and provided facilities for military organization. And there is no fact better attested in the history of the Revolution than the failure of the British authorities to understand until it was too late the great advantages to be derived from the employment of Loyalist levies. The truth is that the British officers did not think much more highly of the Loyalists than they did of the rebels. ”

“ There were even members of the Church of England in the Boston Tea Party; and there were Presbyterians among the exiles who went to Canada and Nova Scotia. The Revolution was not in any sense a religious war; but religious differences contributed to embitter the conflict, and doubtless made Whigs or Tories of people who had no other interest at stake.
It is commonly supposed that the Loyalists drew their strength from the upper classes in the colonies, while the revolutionists drew theirs from the proletariat. There is just enough truth in this to make it misleading. ”

“ According to some American historians of the first half of the nineteenth century, the Loyalists were a comparatively insignificant class of vicious criminals, and the people of the American colonies were all but unanimous in their armed opposition to the British government. ”

“ There were those who were Loyalists because they thought they had picked the winning side, such as the man who candidly wrote from New Brunswick in 1788, ‘I have made one great mistake in politics, for which reason I never intend to make so great a blunder again.’ Many espoused the cause because they were natives of the British Isles, and had not become thoroughly saturated with American ideas: of the claimants for compensation before the Royal Commissioners after the war almost two-thirds were persons who had been born in England, Scotland, or Ireland. ”

“ The immediate necessity during the war had been partially met by assisting thousands to go to Canada—where their descendants today form an important element in the population and are proud of being United Empire Loyalists—while pensions and gifts were supplied to others. Now that the war was over the British were determined that Americans should make good to the 20 Loyalists for all that they had suffered, and His Majesty’s Commissioners were hopeful at least of obtaining a proviso similar to the one relating to the collection of debts. ”

“ It was not, in fact, until 1776 that Loyalist regiments began to be formed on an extensive scale. There were several reasons why this was so. In the first place a great many of the Loyalists, as has been pointed out, were not at the outset in complete sympathy with the policy of the British government; and those who might have been willing to take up arms were very early disarmed and intimidated by the energy of the revolutionary authorities. ”

“ They found it hard to believe that the British government would abandon them to the mercy of their enemies; and yet the temper of the revolutionists toward them continued such that there seemed little hope of concession or conciliation. Success had not taught the rebels the grace of forgiveness. At the capitulation of Yorktown, Washington had refused to treat with the Loyalists in Cornwallis’s army on the same terms as with the British regulars; and Cornwallis had been compelled to smuggle his Loyalist levies out of Yorktown on the ship that carried the news of his surrender to New York. ”

“ They were strong also in Pennsylvania, so strong that an officer of the revolutionary army described that colony as ‘the enemies’ country.’ ‘New York and Pennsylvania,’ wrote John Adams years afterwards, ‘were so nearly divided—if their propensity was not against us—that if New England on one side and Virginia [18] on the other had not kept them in awe, they would have joined the British.’ In Georgia the Loyalists were in so large a majority that in 1781 that colony would probably have detached itself from the revolutionary movement had it not been for the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. ”

“ It was clear that something would have to be done by the British government for the Loyalists’ relief. ‘It is utterly impossible,’ wrote Sir Guy Carleton to Lord North, ‘to leave exposed to the rage and violence of these people [the Americans] men of character whose only offence has been their attachment to the King’s service.’ Accordingly the [52] British government made amends for its betrayal of the Loyalists by taking them under its wing. It arranged for the transportation of all those who wished to leave the revolted states; it offered them homes in the provinces of Nova Scotia and Quebec ”

“ One of Washington’s bitterest sayings was uttered at this time, when he said of the Loyalists that ‘he could see nothing better for them than to commit suicide.’ Loyalist creditors found it impossible to recover their debts in America, while they were themselves sued in the British courts by their American creditors, and their property was still being confiscated by the American legislatures. The legislature of New York publicly declined to reverse its policy of confiscation, on the ground that Great Britain had offered no compensation for the property which her friends had destroyed. ”

“ Even some of the Loyalists had begun to realize that a revolution which had touched property was bound to be permanent, and that the American commissioners could no more give back to them their confiscated lands than Charles II was able to give back to his father's cavaliers the estates they had lost in the Civil War. ”

“ When the war was on they received special attention from the English and the Americans. Both sides were anxious to win their good will and support, and gave them many presents. But now that the war is over the Indians are neglected, so they are becoming surly, and ready for mischief. Mark my word, the arrival of these Loyalists will make matters worse. ”

“ It would be a mistake, however, to identify too closely the parties in England with the parties in America. The old Tory party in England was very different from the so-called Tory party in America. The term Tory in America was, as a matter of fact, an epithet of derision applied by the revolutionists to all who opposed them. The opponents of the revolutionists called themselves not Tories, but Loyalists or ‘friends of government.’
There were, it is true, among the Loyalists not a few who held language that smacked of Toryism. ”

“ Their real reason was that they were well aware that public opinion in America would not support them in such a concession. A few enlightened men in America, such as John Adams, favoured a policy of compensation to the Loyalists, ‘how little soever they deserve it, nay, how much soever they deserve the [47] contrary’; but the attitude of the great majority of the Americans had been clearly demonstrated by a resolution passed in the legislature of Virginia on December 17, 1782, to the effect that all demands for the restitution of confiscated property were wholly inadmissible. ”

“ King George had no more faithful allies in the New World than these rebels of the ’45.
They were the first of the Loyalists to arm and organize themselves. In the summer of [37] 1775 Colonel Allan Maclean, a Scottish officer in the English army, aided by Colonel Guy Johnson, a brother-in-law of Sir John Johnson, raised a regiment in the Mohawk valley known as the Royal Highland Emigrants, which he took to Canada, and which did good service against the American invaders under Montgomery in the autumn of the same year. ”

“ The Loyalists themselves always maintained that they constituted an actual majority in the Thirteen Colonies. In 1779 they professed to have more troops in the field than the Continental Congress. These statements were no doubt exaggerations. The fact is that the strength of the Loyalists was very unevenly distributed. In the colony of New York they may well have been in the majority. ”

“ Much labour has been spent on the problem of the numbers of the Loyalists. No means of numbering political opinions was resorted to at the time of the Revolution, so that satisfactory statistics are not available. There was, moreover, throughout the contest a good deal of going and coming between the Whig and Tory camps, which makes an estimate still more difficult. ”

“ Dorchester, Lord, on Canada, 4; denounces American Whigs, 50, 51; assists migration of the Loyalists, 56, 57; takes strong stand in New York, 59-60; initiates ‘Marke of Honor,’ 118; opposes creation of Upper Canada, 120-2. Dulany, Daniel, protests against British policy, 11-12. Dundas, Colonel Thomas, on the Loyalist settlement in New Brunswick, 84-5. Eastern Townships, Loyalists not allowed to settle in, 95-6. Fanning, Colonel Edmund, tries to take advantage of Loyalists in Prince Edward Island, 88. Finucane, Chief Justice, fails to appease Loyalists in New Brunswick, 77. ”

“ Not many Loyalists found their way to Prince Edward Island, or, as it was called at the time of the American Revolution, the Island of St John. Probably there were not many more than six hundred on the island at any one time. But the story of these immigrants forms a chapter in itself. Elsewhere the refugees were well and loyally treated. In Nova Scotia and Quebec the English officials strove to the best of their ability, which was perhaps not always great, to make provision for them. But in Prince Edward Island they were the victims of treachery and duplicity. ”

“ Jonathan, and the Shelburne settlement, 66. Bliss, Jonathan, a Loyalist in New Brunswick, 80; and social feeling in St John, 82-3. Blowers, Sampson Salter, and the Loyalists, 56. Boston, riots in, 21; and migration of the Loyalists, 54. Botsford, Amos, 56; on New Brunswick, 72. Boucher, Rev. Jonathan, advocates doctrines of passive obedience to authority and the divine right of kings, 8-10; but upholds right of petition, 10; and Washington, 13; threatened by revolutionary mob, 22-3. Brant, Joseph, loyalty of, 37; fails to control Indians at Cherry Valley, 40. ”

“ The opposition of both groups to the Revolution was inevitable and easily to be understood, but it was also natural that the Revolutionists should incline to hold the Loyalists, without distinction, largely responsible for British pre-Revolutionary policy, asserting that they misinformed the Government 18 as to conditions and sentiment in America, partly through stupidity and partly through selfish interest. It was therefore perfectly comprehensible that the feeling should be bitter against them in the United States, especially as they had given efficient aid to the British during the war. ”

“ It does not come within our purpose to write a history of this war; we present only such phases and events of it as will illustrate the Loyalist spirit and courage of the Canadians, French as well as English, and even true Americans; for the American settlers in Canada were, with few exceptions, as loyal subjects and as bold defenders of their adopted country as the U.E. Loyalists themselves; and even the most virtuous and intelligent part of the citizens of the United States protested against the alliance of the Democratic rulers at Washington with the tyrant and scourge of Europe. ”

“ They passed edicts of banishment against the persons, and acts of confiscation against the estates of the Loyalists. They drove them out, poor in purse indeed, but rich in experience, determination, energy, education, intellect and the other qualities which build up states, and with their hearts fired and their energies stimulated with hatred of republicanism. They drove them out 70,000 strong to build up a rival nation at their very doors which perhaps would never have had an existence but for the rash folly of those who persecuted the Loyalists. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The United Empire Loyalist, was one who advocated, or wished to have maintained, the unity of the British empire, who felt as much a Briton in the colony of America, as if he were in old England; who desired to perpetuate British rule in America; not blindly believing that no imperfections could exist in such rule, but desiring to seek reform in a conservative spirit. This class, we have seen, became, as the tide of rebellion gained strength and violence, exceedingly obnoxious to those in rebellion against their King and country. ”

“ Very few really sanctioned the British policy as a whole, but all felt that it was their first duty to fight for the preservation of the empire and to leave constitutional questions for a later settlement. John Adams’s estimate that one-third of all the people in the thirteen states in 1776 were Loyalists was perhaps approximately correct. In New England the number was small, perhaps largest in Connecticut and in the district which afterwards became the state of Vermont. New York was the chief stronghold. ”

“ No Loyalist might hold office, or practice law or medicine, or keep a school.
Some Loyalists were deported to the wilderness in the back country. Many took refuge within the British lines, especially at New York. Many Loyalists created homes elsewhere. Some went to England only to find melancholy disillusion of hope that a grateful motherland would understand and reward their sacrifices. ”