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Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
March 2, 1893

GLIMPSES OF THE PAST

Contributions to the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns.

LVI – THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS.

[Rev. W. O. Raymond, M. A.]

3- Political Parties.

The political parties in the thirteen American provinces were designated respectively ‘Whigs’ and ‘Tories,’ although their sentiments and principles were not quite identical with those of the two great parties in the mother country.  In the conflict, the Whigs very largely took sides with the advocates of American independence, whilst the Tories as a rule proved loyal to the king.

A brief summary of the state of political parties in the thirteen colonies at the commencement of hostilities may here be given.

In Maine, the great body of the people were Whigs, although a large number of influential citizens sided with the crown.

The situation in New Hampshire was very similar to that in Maine; the Whigs being in a large majority, but with numerous and powerful opponents.

Massachusetts, the cradle of the Revolution, was much the most active and energetic of all the colonies in the war; yet even here the people did not embrace the popular side in a mass.  Upwards of 1,100 persons retired with the Royal army at the evacuation of Boston; and an equal number either previously or subsequently embarked from the different ports of Massachusetts and sought new homes under the old flag.

In Rhode Island and Connecticut the Loyalist element was much stronger than than [sic] elsewhere in New England.  Such towns as Stamford, Norwalk, Fairfield, Stratford and Newton probably contained a majority well affected to the crown, and they were styled ‘Tory’ towns.

New York was undeniably the stronghold of the Loyalists, and contained more of them than any other colony in America.  This is indicated by the fact that whole battalions and even regiments were enrolled on the side of the king during the war; whilst for the cause of independence New York only contributed 17,781 troops, as compared with 67,907 furnished by Massachusetts.

New Jersey-termed ‘a scion from New York’-contained also a large number of Tories.  Dr. Ramsay states that when the first conflict of arms took place in that province, ‘scarce one of the inhabitants joined the Americans while numbers were daily flocking to the Royal army to make their peace and obtain protection.’  New Jersey contributed at the close of the war large numbers of expatriated Loyalists, who found a home in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The sentiment of Pennsylvania was very diverse in its character.  The religious faith of many of its people was opposed to armed insurrection.  The Loyalists were influential and wealthy, and by no means inconsiderable in numbers.  It was claimed that had Sir William Howe issued a proclamation when in Philadelphia, 3,500 men would have repaired to his standard.  The prominent Whigs are said to have exhibited timidity and indecision.

Passing now to glance for a moment at the state of affairs in the Southern Provinces, we find that Delaware and Maryland did not take a very active part in the Revolution.

Virginia contained a strong loyal element, as is shown by the correspondence between Washington and Col. Joseph Reed.  Early in March, 1776, the latter wrote that there was ‘a strange reluctance in the minds of many to cut the knot which ties us to Great Britain, particularly in this colony [Pennsylvania] and to the southward.’  A few days later he wrote:

The Virginians are so alarmed with the idea of Independence, that they have sent Braxton on purpose to turn the vote of that colony, if question on that subject should come before Congress.

Washington, replying to Col. Reed, wrote that the people of Virginia ‘from their steady attachment heretofore to royalty, will come reluctantly into the idea of Independence.’

In North Carolina, the Whigs and Tories were divided in fairly equal proportions.  During the war a large number of Loyalists joined the Royal party and enlisted under the king’s banner.  Many of the Whigs were, says Sabine, ‘as unstable as the wind.’  The troops furnished for the Continental army during the war numbered 7,268, or less than one third of the quota required of the state.

South Carolina, up to the time of the Revolution, had modelled its local government and institutions after the pattern of England.  It was in fact a sort of monarchy in miniature.  the hot blooded Southerner has ever proved a violent partizan; probably in none of the thirteen provinces was the internecine strife waged with as much bitterness as in South Carolina.  During the war, General Greene wrote:

The Whigs seem determined to extirpate the Tories and the Tories the Whigs.  Some thousands have fallen in this way in this quarter, and the evil rages with more violence than ever.  If a stop cannot be put to these massacres, the country will be depopulated.

Thirty battles were fought within the limits of South Carolina; and after all the Tories were not subjugated, but, on the other hand, after the fall of Charleston, and until the peace, were in the ascendant.

Georgia, the remaining province, may be said to have been in its infancy.  It had, however, a considerable number of Loyalists, and seems to have been so doubtful a source of strength in the cause of independence that a proposal was made in 1781 to separate Georgia from the union.  When South Carolina and Georgia were abandoned by the British in 1782 there were 13,271 Loyalists to accompany the troops.

Chief Justice Marshall, in his life of Washington, says:

The people of the South felt all the miseries which are inflicted by war in its most savage form.  Being almost equally divided between the two contending parties, reciprocal injuries had gradually sharpened their resentments against each other, and had armed neighbor against neighbor, until it had become a war of extermination.  As the parties alternately triumphed, opportunities were alternately given for the exercise of their vindictive passions.

Sabine, referring to this unhappy period in the South, says:

It were a hard task to determine which party perpetrated the greatest barbarities; and whatever the guilt of the Tories, the Whigs disgraced their cause and the American name.

Whilst there have been widely differing estimates of the proportion of the Loyalists to the entire population of the old colonies at the beginning and during the progress of the war, enough has been written to prove that the American Revolution was much more of a civil war than has been generally been admitted by United States writers.  At the beginning of the struggle there were three classes of people in the colonies: a large and energetic minority, which aimed at the separation of the colonies from England; a smaller, yet influential minority, which desired above all else to perpetuate the unity of the empire; and a class larger than either, which stood in an attitude of expectancy.  As the war progressed, the last named class found itself obliged, in some cases with the greatest reluctance, to side with one or other of the parties first mentioned.

John Adams affirmed that only a third of the American people were averse to the Revolution.  Lecky, the English historian, says ‘It is probably below the truth that a full half of the more honorable and respected Americans were either openly or secretly hostile to the Revolution.’  Careful study and investigation, on the part of the writer have only served to confirm the opinion expressed by the historian just named, that the American Revolution was the work of an energetic and persevering minority, which succeeded in committing an undecided and fluctuating majority to a cause for which, at the outset, they had but little love, but which subsequently the force of circumstances led then [sic] to support with more or less heartiness.  Col. Sabine says that whilst the Loyalists almost always claimed that they were really in the majority, his own opinion is that they certainly fell short of a majority, though making a large minority.