Volume II Part 11 (2/2)
”Throughout the American war, the desolation brought by the Indians on the frontier settlements of the United States, and on the Indians by the Americans, was sufficient to excite compa.s.sion in the most obdurate heart.
”Not only men and warriors, but women and children indiscriminately murdered, while whole settlements were involved in promiscuous desolation. Each was made a scourge to the other; and the unavoidable calamities of war were rendered doubly distressing by the dispersion of families, the breaking up of settlements, and an addition of savage cruelties, to the most extensive devastation of those things which conduce to the comfort of human life.”]
[Footnote 97: The biographer of Brant and historian of the Border Wars of the American Revolution thinks that Sir Guy Carleton was not opposed to the employment of the Indians in the war with the Congress (Vol. I., pp. 89, 90), and quotes Brant as his authority; but General Haldimand (who himself favoured the employment of the Indians in the war) appears to be the safest interpreter of the views of Sir Guy Carleton, who intended, by the friendly alliance of the Indians with the King, that they should be neutral.]
[Footnote 98: Stone's Life of Joseph Brant, including the Border Wars of the American Revolution, Vol. II., Chap. i.]
[Footnote 99: Life of Brant, including the Border Wars of the American Revolution.]
[Footnote 100: Brant himself was educated at Philadelphia, married and lived quietly on his land in the Mohawk Valley, entertained the missionaries, and a.s.sisted in translating portions of the New Testament; but when the revolution commenced he was not allowed to live in peace unless he joined the revolutionary party. He determined to maintain, as he said, the covenant faith of his forefathers to the King of England, and entered upon the ”warpath,” in which he became so distinguished a hero; in the course of which he perpetrated many deeds of cruelty, but also, as his biographer records, performed many acts of humanity, kindness, and generosity.]
[Footnote 101: Stone's Brant and the Border Wars of the American Revolution, Vol. I., Introduction, pp. 13, 14, 15.]
CHAPTER x.x.xVI.
SITUATION AND TREATMENT OF THE LOYALISTS DURING THE WAR.
The condition of the United Empire Loyalists for several months before, as well as after, the Declaration of Independence, was humiliating to freemen and perilous in the extreme; and that condition became still more pitiable after the alliance of the revolutionists with the French--the hereditary enemies of both England and the colonies. From the beginning the Loyalists were deprived of the freedom of the press, freedom of a.s.semblage, 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.
Before the Declaration of Independence, both parties were confessedly British subjects, professing allegiance to the same sovereign and const.i.tution of government, both professing and avowing their adherence to the rights of British subjects; but differing from each other as to the extent of those rights in contradistinction to the const.i.tutional rights of the Crown and those of the people--as in the case of party discussions of all const.i.tutional questions, whether in the colonies or mother country for centuries past. Both parties had their advocates in the British Parliament; and while the prerogative advocates supported the corrupt Ministry of the day--or the King's party, as it was called--the Opposition in Parliament supported the pet.i.tions and remonstrances of those colonists who claimed a more popular colonial government; but all the advocates of the const.i.tutional rights of the colonists, in both Houses of Parliament, disclaimed, on the part of those whom they represented, the least idea of independence or separation from England. The Declaration of Independence essentially changed the relations of parties, both in Great Britain and America. The party of independence--getting, after months of manipulation by its leaders, first a majority of one in the Congress, and afterwards increasing that majority by various means--repudiated their former professed principles of connection with England; broke faith with the great men and parties in England, both in and out of Parliament, who had vindicated their rights and professions for more than ten years; broke faith also with their numerous fellow-subjects in America who adhered to the old faith, to the old flag, and connection with England, and who were declared by resolutions of Conventions, from Congress, provinces, counties, to towns.h.i.+ps and towns, enemies of their country, rebels and traitors, and treated as such.[102] Even before the Declaration of Independence, some of these popular meetings, called Conventions, a.s.sumed the highest functions of legislation and government, and dealt at pleasure with the rights, liberties, property, and even lives of their Tory fellow citizens. There had been violent words, terms of mutual reproach, as in all cases of hot political contests; but it was for the advocates of independent liberty to deny to the adherents of the old faith all liberty of speech or of opinion, except under penalties of imprisonment or banishment, with confiscation of property. For a large portion of the community[103] to be thus stript of their civil rights by resolutions of a Convention, and reduced to the position of proscribed aliens or slaves, must have been galling to Loyalists beyond expression, and well calculated to prompt them to outbreaks of pa.s.sion, and retaliations of resentment and revenge, each such act followed by a corresponding act from the opposite party.[104]
It might be supposed that forbearance and respect would have been shown to those who remained ”steadfast and immovable” in the traditional faith of British monarchy and British connection, notwithstanding a corrupt and arbitrary party was in power for the time being; but the very reverse of this was the case on the part of those who professed, as one cardinal article of their political creed, that ”all men are born free and equal,” and therefore that every man had an equal right to his opinions, and an equal right to the expression of them; but all this was reversed in the treatment of the Loyalists. Mr. Hildreth well describes the position and treatment of the Loyalists, both before and after the Declaration of Independence, in the following words:
”In the position of that considerable cla.s.s of persons who had remained in doubt, the Declaration of Independence and the a.s.sumption of State government made a decided change. It was now necessary to choose one side or the other.
”Very serious, too, was the change in the legal position of the cla.s.s known as Tories, in many of the States a large minority, and in all respectable for wealth and social position. Of those thus stigmatized, some were inclined to favour the utmost claims of the mother country; _but the greater part, though determined to adhere to the British connection, yet deprecated the policy which had brought on so fatal a quarrel_. This loyal minority, especially its more conspicuous members, as the warmth of political feeling increased, had been exposed to the violence of mobs, and to all sorts of personal indignities, in which private malice or a wanton and insolent spirit of mischief had been too often gratified under the disguise of patriotism. The barbarous and disgraceful practice of tarring and feathering and carting Tories, placing them in a cart and carrying them about as a sort of spectacle, had become in some places a favourite amus.e.m.e.nt. To restrain these outrages, Congress had specially committed the oversight of Tories and suspected persons to the regularly appointed Committees of Inspection and Observation for the several counties and districts. But even these Committees were not always very judicious or discriminating in the exercise of despotic powers implied in that delicate trust.
”By the recent political changes, Tories and suspected persons became exposed to dangers from the law as well as from mobs. Having boldly seized the reins of government, the new State authorities claimed the allegiance of all residents within their limits, and under the lead and recommendation of Congress, those who refused to acknowledge their authority, or who adhered to their enemies, were exposed to severe penalties, confiscation of property, imprisonment, banishment, and finally death.”[105]
It does not appear that these lawless outrages upon ”Tories” were ever checked or discountenanced, or their authors ever even reproved by the so-called authorities, but were actively or tacitly encouraged; so that before and during the very first months of Independence, the Loyalists were subject to the penalties of the mobs on one side and to the more cruel penalties of new-made law by a newly self-created authority on the other side. Perhaps no one did as much to promote this cruel policy against the Loyalists as Mr. John Adams, who was the ruling spirit in all the proceedings of Boston for years, the advocate of the Declaration of Independence, and the chief member of the Secret Committee of Congress for years, and was at length appointed Amba.s.sador from the American Congress to Holland, whence he wrote a letter to Thomas Cus.h.i.+ng, then Lieutenant-Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, but which was intercepted on board of the prize brigantine _Cabot_, and carried to St.
Christopher's, in the West Indies. This letter was published in the Annual Register for 1781, pp. 259-261. It is dated ”Amsterdam, December 15th, 1780,” more than four years after the Declaration of Independence, and fully indicates the source of all those cruel acts against the Loyalists at the commencement and during the early years of the American civil war. Mr. Adams says:
”It is true, I believe, what you suggest, that Lord North showed a disposition to give up the contest, but was diverted from it not unlikely by the representation of the Americans in London, who, in connection with their coadjutors in America, have been thorns to us indeed on both sides of the water; but I think their career might have been stopt on your side if the executive officers had not been too timid in a point which I so strenuously recommended at the first--namely, to fine, imprison, and hang all inimical to the cause, without favour or affection. I foresaw the evil that would arise from that quarter, and wished to have timely stopt it. I would have hanged my own brother had he taken a part with our enemy in the contest.”
Such was the ”strenuously recommended” wholesale hanging policy of Mr.
John Adams for the extermination of the ”Tories”--a curious ill.u.s.tration of his professed doctrine, that ”all men are born free and equal,” and which largely accounts for the treatment of Loyalists during the war, and for the exasperated feelings which existed between them and their persecutors and oppressors of the Independence party. One of the first manifestations of this relentless feeling against the Loyalists occurred in Mr. Adams' native city of Boston, on its evacuation by General Howe, who, as Lord Mahon says, ”had taken with him, at their own urgent request, above a thousand of the inhabitants of Boston, who had espoused the cause of the parent State, and who dreaded on that account the vengeance of their countrymen. Before they had embarked, they had, as Was.h.i.+ngton informs his brother, publicly declared that 'if they thought the most abject submission would procure them peace, they never would have stirred.'”[106] (Letter to John Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton, March 13th, 1776, as printed in the American Archives.)
”Indeed, throughout this contest, and amidst all those qualities displayed by the Americans, many of those qualities being ent.i.tled to high respect and commendation, there was none certainly less amiable than their merciless rancour against those among them who adhered to the royal side. In reference to those, a ferocious saying came to be current in America, that though we are commanded to forgive our enemies, we are nowhere commanded to forgive our friends. In reference to them, true Jetburgh justice was more than once administered--first the punishment, then the accusation, and last of all the evidence.”[107]
The Convention of the State of New York (1776) resolved that ”any person being an adherent to the King of Great Britain should be guilty of treason and suffer death.”[108]
The Loyalists experienced similar treatment in other provinces.
”Previous to their evacuation of Philadelphia, the Congress had ordered some of the princ.i.p.al Quakers and other gentlemen of the first consideration in that place, above twenty in number, to be taken into custody, as strongly attached to the royal cause, and known enemies to the ruling powers. These gentlemen had repeatedly refused to give any written or verbal acknowledgment of allegiance or submission to the American Government, or promise of holding no correspondence with its enemies. Notwithstanding the evident danger their persons were in, they had even the resolution to refuse confining themselves to their respective dwellings. The spirit of these gentlemen was unconquerable to the last, as they still persisted, in defiance of threats, and in spite of all solicitations and entreaty, immovable in their principles and in their determination to reject the test that was proposed to them. They were sent prisoners to Stanton, in Virginia, as soon as it was apprehended that the British troops would take possession of Philadelphia.”[109]
After the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown, the defenceless Loyalists were the objects of vengeance as they went further north. The army of Lord Cornwallis received civil treatment from Was.h.i.+ngton's army,[110] and great kindness from the French officers and soldiers.
Lord Mahon observes:
”The followers of the English army, left defenceless at Yorktown, were exposed to much ill-treatment on the part of the native soldiers, thirsting, it was said, for vengeance. Abbe Robin[111] saw an English lady, a colonel's wife, come in tears to implore for herself and for her children the protection of French generosity against American outrage.
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