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Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
March 30, 1893

GLIMPSES OF THE PAST

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

LX – THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS.

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

7.- Loyalists in Arms.

In the Canadian archives for the year 1883, p. 11, the names of twenty-nine Loyalist crops are recorded.  At the close of the Revolution many of the disbanded officers and men of these corps settled on the river St. John and elsewhere in the province of New Brunswick.  The list referred to need not be given in full; such names as King’s Rangers, Queen’s Rangers, King’s American Regiment, Prince of Wales American Volunteers, Royal Fencibles, etc., are both strikingly familiar to the ear and suggestive as well of the loyalty of those who chose such patriotic titles for their regiments.

Some account of the doings of the Provincial corps will be found in the Haldimand papers at Ottawa, the papers of Sir Guy Carleton in the war office, London; Stryker’s New Jersey Volunteers; Jones’s Loyalist History of New York; DePeyster’s Military Career of Brig. Gen. Johnson, of the King’s Royal Regiment; Simcoe’s Operations of the Queen’s Rangers; the narrative of Lieut. James Moody; the diary of Lieut. Anthony Allaire; Fanning’s narrative of Adventures in North and South Carolina, and Sabine’s Loyalists of the American Revolution.

New England furnished several regiments-the Loyal New Englanders, Wentworth’s Volunteers, and other corps-which, however, were more noted as marauders than on the field of battle.

In the South there were many ardent supporters of the loyal side.  In the Carolinas a Royalist regiment was raised in a few days in 1776, and again in 1779.  ‘The most obnoxious of all the Tory vagabondish leaders,’ says Justin Winsor, ‘was Colonel David Fanning, of North Carolina, whose narrative, giving an account of his adventures in North Carolina from 1775 to 1783, has twice been printed (Richmond, 1861, New York, 1865)’¹

In Georgia and Carolina, the bitterest partizan warfare was carried on between the Whig and Tory bands.  This is very well illustrated in Fanning’s narrative.  Writing from St. John, in March, 1786, to the commissioners on the Loyalist claims, he sums up his services by saying he was engaged against the rebels thirty-six times in North Carolina and four times in South Carolina.  He commanded armed parties varying in strength from a hundred to nine hundred and fifty men.  He was twice wounded, and many times a prisoner.  On one occasion he captured and carried off the governor of North Carolina.  So exceedingly obnoxious did he become that he was declared an outlaw, and was one of three excepted by name in the act of general pardon and oblivion passed by the state.

New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania supplied the larger and better organized portion of the loyal corps, which in the field gained an enviable reputation for steadiness and courage.  DeLancey’s battalions particularly distinguished themselves in the campaign in the southern colonies.  The Queen’s Rangers was a regiment second to none in the British service.  Butler’s corps achieved notoriety through their action in what is called the ‘massacre of Wyoming,’ concerning which there has been much controversy.  The strictures of American writers have, however, been ably traversed by Dr. Ryerson.

It is but natural that very opposite opinions should have been formed by the contending parties regarding the acts of their enemies.  As an example of this we find that whilst DeLancey’s battalions were commended for their bravery and general conduct by the commander-in-chief of the British forces, they were in such ill odor with the Stamford ‘patriots’ that they passed a resolution that ‘none of the unprincipled wretches who belong to the most infamous banditti called DeLancey’s corps should return to their homes in Connecticut.’

It is unnecessary to particularize the services of the Provincial regiments during the seven years of conflict.  Suffice it to say that as a rule the loyal corps behaved with ‘reputation, credit, honor, and courage,’ despite the fact that they met with comparatively little encouragement from the ‘regulars,’ who looked upon them as an inferior class of soldiery, neglected the advice of Provincial officers, and pursued a European mode of warfare unsuited to the country.

The British generals made a great mistake at the beginning of the war in not exerting themselves to gain the sympathy and support of the entire loyal population of America.  Instead of doing so, they appear to have viewed the matter with indifference, and to have permitted the rank and file of the army to rob and plunder the inhabitants without discrimination, thereby alienating those most warmly disposed to favor the cause of the mother country.  The misfortunes of the Loyalists were thus greatly aggravated by the fact that they were exposed to harsh treatment not only by avowed enemies, but by professed friends.

Says the Rev. Leonard Cutting, in a letter written at Hempstead, Long Island, in 1781:

Where the army is, oppression, such as in England you can have no conception of, universally prevails.  We have nothing we can call our own; and the door to redress is inaccessible.  The army has done more essential injury to the king’s cause than the utmost efforts of his enemies.

The same reckless indifference to the interests of the Loyalists prevailed in the navy.  This is proved by the following petition:

To His Excellency, James Robertson, Esquire, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Province of New York and Lieutenant General of His Majesty’s Forces, etc., etc., etc.,

The Memorial of John Fowler, Israel Hoyt, and David Pickett, most humbly sheweth,

That having left their properties in the country and come within the Royal Lines for protection, upon application to Government for support they obtained with others a grant of Eaton’s Neck, the property of John Sloss Hobart, in Rebellion, but the same being applied for and obtained by James Jauncey, Esquire, and others, who had a mortgage on the same, your memorialists hired the same from those gentlemen at a Rental agreed on.

That being settled on said place upon the aforesaid terms, and endeavoring to support their families by honest industry, they found themselves disappointed, and prevented enjoying the fruits of their labors by the crews of the armed vessels stationed in Huntington Bay for their protection, who have taken their property from them without any license, pay or satisfaction.

That they have made repeated application to the commanders of said Guard Ships to prevent the ravages of their crew and to obtain satisfaction, but obtaining neither, they, with their associates, applied to Admiral Digby for redress, who kindly wrote to said commanders on the subject, without producing the desired effect; that upon the delivery of Admiral Digby’s letter to Captain Steel he flew into a violent passion, threatening to tye the complainants to a gun and flog them, ordering them out of the ship, and adding he would blow them to Hell if they ever came alongside again, telling them he would give them no redress nor protection, but would have his revenge before he left the station.

In this situation, being left remediless, they apply to your Excellency, as Governor of the Province, the Patron and Director of all Loyal subjects driven from their habitation, and humbly request that your Excellency would be favorably pleased to recommend their distressed case to His Excellency Admiral Digby, and to interpose in their favor, so that they with the others suffering in a similar situation may have effectual redress and a stop be put to such ravages for the future; and they as in duty bound will ever pray, etc.,
New York, 8th January, 1782.

Judge Jones, speaking of the soldiers quartered on Long Island, says:

They robbed, plundered and pillaged the inhabitants of everything they could lay their hands on.  It was no uncommon thing of an afternoon to see a farmer driving a flock of turkeys, geese, ducks or dung hill fowls and locking them up in his cellar for security during the night.  The whole day it was necessary for a person to attend in the fields where they fed to protect them from the ravages of the military.  It was no uncommon thing for a farmer his wife and children to sleep in one room, while his sheep were bleating in the room adjoining, his hogs grunting in the kitchen, and cocks crowing, hens cackling, ducks quacking and geese hissing in the cellar.  Horned cattle were for safety locked up in barns, stables and outhouses.  This robbing was done by people sent to America to protect Loyalists against the persecutions and depredations of rebels.  To complain was needless; the officers shared in the plunder.

The inhabitants of Long Island were at this time nearly all of them favorable to the king’s cause.

In passing through the Jerseys and Pennsylvania, the red-coats and Hessians seemed to find a wanton pleasure in entering houses and barnyards to outrage and pilfer, stealing the cattle and devastating the crops of the loyal inhabitants with as little compunction as if they had been rebels.  Some of the victims had fortified themselves with protection papers obtained from British officials, testifying to their fidelity to the government, and even to their having done service for it; but it was in vain that these certificates were exhibited to rough marauders, who either could not or would not read them.  Cases are even recorded in which rapine and violence were accompanied by vile debaucheries which drove many true hearted Loyalists to desperation.

There can be no doubt whatever that the haughty, arrogant demeanor of the British ‘regulars’ towards the ‘provincials,’ combined with the ill treatment of loyal inhabitants by English soldiers and sailors, lost to the royal cause thousands upon thousands of friends and well-wishers in all the colonies.  Nevertheless, as has been already shown, the number of those who actively supported the British side was very considerable.  In December, 1780, there were 8,954 Provincial troops among the British forces in America, at which period the strength of the ‘Continental army’ was but little more than 21,000 men.  In addition to the regularly enlisted Provincial troops, there were loyal ‘associations’ in Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania, ‘associated Loyalists’ in New York, and similar organizations in others states.

By all estimates, probably below the mark, 25,000 natives of the colonies were enrolled in the king’s service at one time or another during the war.

¹Colonel David Fanning has not received fair treatment, either at the hands of Sabine or of those who published his narrative 1861 and 1865.  He came to New Brunswick at the close of the war, and settled on the St. John river, at the head of ‘the Mistake,’ in the parish of Greenwich, Kings Co.  His name is preserved in Fanning’s Creek, a small stream in the neighborhood.  He subsequently removed to Digby, N. S., where he died in 1825, aged 70 years.