Volume II Part 12 (1/2)
On the other hand, we find the English officers and soldiers, the actual prisoners of war, bear willing testimony to the kindness they received.
Thus speaks Lord Cornwallis in his letter to Sir Henry Clinton: 'The treatment in general that we have received from the enemy since our surrender has been perfectly good and proper. But the kindness and attention that has been shown us by the French officers in particular, their delicate sensibility of our situation, their generous and pressing offer of money, both public and private, to any amount, has really gone beyond what I can possibly describe, and will, I hope, make an impression on the breast of every English officer, whenever the fortune of war should put any of them into our power.'” (Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lxiv., pp. 181, 182.)
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER x.x.xVI.
THE ACTS OF LEGISLATIVE BODIES FOR THE PUNISHMENT OF THE ADHERENTS TO THE CROWN WERE NUMEROUS.
”In _Rhode Island_, death and _confiscation_ of estate were the penalties by law for any person who communicated with _the Ministry_ or their agents, _or_ who afforded supplies to the forces, _or_ piloted the armed s.h.i.+ps of the King. Besides these general statutes, several Acts were pa.s.sed in that State to confiscate and sequester the property of certain persons who were designated by name.
”In _Connecticut_, the offences of supplying the royal army or navy, of giving them information, of enlisting or procuring others to enlist in them, and of piloting or a.s.sisting naval vessels, were punished more mildly, and involved only the loss of estate and personal liberty for a term not exceeding three years. To _speak_ or _write_ or act against the doings of Congress or of the a.s.sembly of Connecticut, was punishable by _disqualification for office, imprisonment_, and the disarming of the offender. Here, too, was a law for seizing and confiscating the estates of those who sought royal protection, and absented themselves from their homes or the country.
”In _Ma.s.sachusetts_, a person _suspected_ of enmity to the Whig cause could be _arrested_ under a magistrate's warrant and banished, unless he would swear fealty to the friends of liberty; and the select men of towns could prefer charges of political treachery in town meetings, and the individual accused, if convicted by a jury, could be sent into the enemy's jurisdiction (banished). Ma.s.sachusetts also designated by name, and generally by occupation and residence, 380 of her people, of whom seventeen had been inhabitants of Maine, who had fled from their homes, and denounced against any one of them who should return, apprehension, imprisonment, and transportation to a place possessed by the British; and for a second voluntary return, without leave, _death_ without the benefit of clergy. By another law, the property of twenty-nine persons who were denominated 'notorious conspirators,' was confiscated--two had been governors, one lieutenant-governor, one treasurer, one attorney-general, one chief justice, and four commissioners of customs.
”_New Hamps.h.i.+re_ pa.s.sed Acts similar to these, under which seventy-six of her former citizens were prohibited from coming within her borders, and the estates of twenty-eight were declared to be forfeited.
”_Virginia_ pa.s.sed a resolution to the effect that persons of a given description should be deemed and treated as aliens, and that their property should be sold, and the proceeds go into the public treasury for future disposal; and also a law prohibiting the migration of certain persons to that commonwealth, and providing penalties for the violation of its provisions.
”In _New York_, the County Committees were authorized to apprehend and decide upon the guilt of such inhabitants as were _supposed_ to hold correspondence with the enemy, or had committed some other specified act; and they might punish those whom they adjudged to be guilty with imprisonment for three months, or banishment. There, too, persons opposed to liberty and independence were prohibited from practising law in the Courts; and the effects of fifty-nine persons, of whom three were women, and their rights of remainder and reversion, were to pa.s.s by confiscation from them to the people. So, also, a parent whose sons went off and adhered to the enemy was subjected to a tax of ninepence on the pound of the parents' estate for each and every such son; and until a revision of the law, Whigs were as liable to this tax as others.
”In _New Jersey_, one Act was pa.s.sed to punish traitors and disaffected persons; another, for taking charge of and leasing the real estates, and for forfeiting the personal estates of certain fugitives and offenders; and a third for forfeiting to, and vesting in the State, the real property of the persons designated in the second statute; and a fourth, supplemental to the Act first mentioned.
”In _Pennsylvania_, sixty-two persons, who were designated by name, were required by the Executive Council to surrender themselves to some Judge of a Court, or Justice of the Peace, within a specified time, and abide trial for _treason_, or in default of appearance to stand attainted; and by an Act of a subsequent time, the estates of thirty-six other persons, who were also designated by name, and who had been previously attainted of treason, were declared to be confiscated.
”The Act of _Delaware_ provided that the property, both real and personal, of certain persons who were named, and who were forty-six in number, should be forfeited to the State, 'subject, nevertheless, to the payment of the said offenders' just debts,' unless, as in Pennsylvania, they gave themselves up to trial for _the crime of treason in adhering to the royal cause_.
”_Maryland_ seized, confiscated, and appropriated all property of persons in allegiance to the British Crown, and appointed Commissioners to carry out the terms of three statutes which were pa.s.sed to effect these purposes.
”In _North Carolina_, the Confiscation Act embraced sixty-five specified individuals, and four mercantile firms, and by its terms not only included the 'lands' of these persons and commercial houses, but their 'negroes and other personal property.'
”The law of _Georgia_, which was enacted very near the close of the struggle, declared certain persons to have been guilty of treason against that State, and their estates to be forfeited for their offences.”[112]
”_South Carolina_ surpa.s.sed all the other members of the confederacy, Ma.s.sachusetts excepted. The Loyalists of the State, whose rights, persons, and property were affected by legislation, were divided into four cla.s.ses. The persons who had offended the least, who were forty-five in number, were allowed to retain their estates, but were amerced twelve per cent. of their value. Soon after the fall of Charleston, and when disaffection to the Whig cause was so general, 210 persons, who styled themselves to be 'princ.i.p.al inhabitants' of the city, signed an address to Sir Henry Clinton, in which they state that they have every inducement to return to their allegiance, and ardently hope to be re-admitted to the character and condition of British subjects. These 'addressers' formed another cla.s.s. Of these 210, sixty-three were banished and lost their property by forfeiture, either for this offence or the graver one of affixing their names to a pet.i.tion to the royal general, to be armed on the royal side. Another cla.s.s, composed of the still larger number of eighty persons, were _also banished and divested of their estates_, for the crime of holding civil or military commissions under the Crown, after the conquest of South Carolina. And the same penalties were inflicted upon thirteen others, who, on the success of Lord Cornwallis at Camden, presented his lords.h.i.+p with congratulations. Still fourteen others were _banished and deprived of their estates_ because they were _obnoxious_. Thus, then, the 'addressers,' 'pet.i.tioners,' 'congratulators,' and 'obnoxious Loyalists,' who were proscribed, and who suffered the loss of their property (in South Carolina), were 170 in number; and if to these we add the forty-five who were fined twelve pounds in the hundred of the value of their estates, the aggregate will be 215.
”Much of the legislation of the several States appears to have proceeded from the recommendations made from time to time _by Congress_, and that body pa.s.sed several acts and resolutions of its own. Thus they subjected to _martial law_ and to _death_ all who should furnish provisions and certain other articles to the King's troops in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; and they resolved that all Loyalists taken in arms should be sent to the States to which they belonged, there to be _dealt with as traitors_” (not as prisoners of war, as were Americans taken in arms against the British).[113]
REMARKS ON THE CONFISCATION ACTS ABOVE CITED.
The Draconian Code or the Spanish Inquisition can hardly be said to exceed in severity and intolerance, the acts of the several State Legislatures and Committees above quoted, in which mere opinions are declared to be treason, as also the refusal to renounce a solemn oath of allegiance. The very place of residence, the non-presenting one's self to be tried as a traitor, the mere _suspicion_ of holding Loyalist opinions, involved the loss of liberty and property. Scores of persons were made criminals, not after trial by a verdict of a regularly empanelled jury, but by name, in acts or resolutions of Legislatures, and sometimes of Committees. No modern civilized country has presented such a spectacle of the wholesale disposal, by name, of the rights, liberties and properties, and even lives of citizens, by inquisition and various bodies, as was here presented against the Loyalists, guilty of no crime against their neighbours except holding to the opinions of their forefathers, and the former opinions of their present persecutors, who had usurped the power to rob, banish, and destroy them--who embodied in themselves, at one and the same time, the functions of law makers, law judges, and law executioners, and the receivers and disposers, or, as was the case, the possessors of the property which they confiscated against the Loyalists.
Is it surprising, then, that under such a system of oppression and robbery, Loyalists should be prompted to deeds of heroism, and sometimes of desperation and cruelty, to avenge themselves for the wrongs inflicted upon them, and to recover the liberties and properties of which they had thus been deprived, rendering themselves and their families homeless, and reducing them to poverty and distress? No one can justify many deeds of the Loyalists; but who could be surprised had they been more desperate than they were? And this the more so as they were, probably, superior in wealth and nearly equal in numbers to their oppressors, who had suddenly seized upon all military sources of power, disarmed the Loyalists, and erected tribunals for their ruin.[114]
American writers often speak of the havoc committed by the ”Tories,” but the acts of Legislatures and Committees above quoted furnish ample causes and provocation for retaliation, and the most desperate enterprises and efforts to recover lawful rights and hard-earned property. Where these Confiscating Acts had been most sweeping and severe, as in the case of South Carolina, and the two parties nearly equal, this internecine war against life and property was the most relentless.[115]
It is as easy as it is unfair for American writers to narrate and magnify the murderous acts of the ”Tories,” and omit those perpetrated by the ”Whigs,” as well as the cruel laws against the liberties, property, and lives of the ”Tories,” which gave rise to these barbarous acts.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 102: ”Committees exercised legislative, executive, and judicial powers. It is not to be doubted that, in many instances, these were improperly used, and that private resentments were often covered under the specious veil of patriotism. The sufferers, in pa.s.sing over to the Royalists, carried with them a keen remembrance of the vengeance of Committees, and when opportunity presented were tempted to retaliate.”
(Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xxvi., pp.
467, 468.)]
[Footnote 103: ”Until the Declaration of Independence they were by far the largest party, who not only expected but prayed for a reconciliation. England was their home, and by that affectionate name was always spoken of; all the wrongs which were heaped upon the children could not make them forget their home, or entirely alienate them from their parent. The ligaments that connect nations are never less powerful, though less tender, than those which unite individuals, families, and clans. Consanguinity, affinity, alliance, operate alike on each.” (Allen's History of the American War.)