History of the settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario,) with special reference to the Bay Quinté. William Canniff
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world kept in ignorance—American glory—Englishmen—Question of Colonial treatment—The reason why Great Britain failed to subdue the rebellion—Character of the rebel bravery—The great result—Liberty in England and United States contrasted—Slavery—The result to U. E. Loyalists—Burgoyne—Mobocracy—Treatment from “Sons of Liberty”—Old men, women and children—Instances of cruelty—Brutality—Rapacity—Torture—The lower classes—“Swamp Law”—Fiendish cruelty—Worse than Butler’s Rangers—Seward and the Fenians—Infamous falsification—Close of the war—Recognition of independence by Great Britain—Crushed hopes of the Loyalists—In New York—Their conduct—Evacuation day—The position of the Loyalists—Confiscation—“Attainting”—Seizing estates—Paine—Commissioners at Paris—British Ministry—Loyalists’ petition—King’s speech—Division of claimants—Six classes—The number—Tardy justice—Noble conduct of South Carolina—Impostors—Loyalists in Lower Canada—Proclamation—The soldiers’ families—Journeyings—Meeting of families.
THE RESULT.
Almost a hundred years have passed away since the war-cloud arose which swept away thirteen of Britain’s colonies upon the uncertain and tempest-tossed ocean of Republicanism. That storm is long since stilled, as well as the hearts of those who took part therein.
While the statesman and politician may, with advantage, study the lesson then read, and which has been but lately annotated by the United States civil war, by the determined subjection of eight millions of Southerners, who desired freedom to establish a new government, let it be our humble occupation to record some of the immediate individual results of that great tempest, of which American writers, with but few exceptions, have never spoken fairly. Writers among them are not wanting to give lively pen pictures of their revolutionary heroes; not only forgetting the sufferings of the loyalists—the devoted ones, who gave up all—property, homes, friends, all the associations of a birth-place, rather than bow the knee to Baal; but who have wilfully misrepresented them; have charged them with crimes, at once atrocious and unfounded. The sufferings, the losses, the hardships, incident to pioneer life, with the noble purposes and undeviating loyalty of the British American tories, have never been fully related—never engaged the pen of the faithful historian. American writers, on the contrary, have recorded in glowing colors the deeds and actions of the “fathers of the Republic.” To this no objection; can be made; but may we not charge those historians with uncharitableness, with unnecessary neglect of the claims of the loyalists to pure motives, with ignoring their brave deeds, their devoted sufferings, and with unduly ascribing to the “king’s men” motives base and cruel. But the sufferings of the U. E. Loyalists are unrecorded. The world has rarely been told that they were persecuted, their homes pillaged, their persons maltreated, their valuables seized, their houses made desolate, their real estate taken from them, without legal proceedings. The world has been so flooded with the writings of Americans, describing their own excellencies and eulogizing their own cause, that no space has been found to do simple justice to the noble ones who preferred British rule to the uncertain and untried. Indeed, so strongly and for so long a time has the current been flowing to swell the ocean of American glory, that hardly a voice or pen is found doing service for the unfortunate loyalists, who chose to endure a little rather than rush into the vortex of rebellious strife. Even Englishmen have so long listened to one-sided statements, that no one of them can be found to say a word for the old tory party of America. Hence it is that the U. E. Loyalists are very imperfectly known; their history unwritten, their tales of sorrow unattended to, their noble doings unsung. Had there been a hand to guide a describing pen—to picture the doings, the sufferings, the self-denying heroism of the loyal party; to recount the motives underlying all they did; and had there been ears as willing to listen, and eyes to read, and hearts to receive the facts as those of a contrary nature have obtained, then a far different impression would have been made, and fixed upon the world.
That the British Government was right or wise in its treatment of the American colonies we now have every reason to doubt. At the same time, that England might have subdued that rebellion, had she put forth her undivided strength, there is but little reason to question. Had she not been engaged in a formidable war with France; or even with that, had her statesmen acquired a correct knowledge of America as to topography, and as to the feelings and wishes of the people and their just complaints; or had able generals been entrusted with the command of the armies, instead of incompetent favorites; or had a little diplomacy been practiced, and the ringleaders of the whig faction—often hungry agitators—been conciliated by office; in either event the rebellion might have been nipped in the bud, or easily overcome. The American Republic owes its independence to the circumstances in which Great Britain was then placed, and the incapacity of a few of the British Generals, rather than to superior bravery, extraordinary military talent, or any high-toned longing for liberty. No doubt many of the rebelling party were brave; but it was often the bravery of the guerilla, or the desperate adventurer.
Of the great result—the recognition of the independence of the rebelling provinces by the mother country—we design not to speak at length. It will always remain a question, whether it would not have been better for the States themselves, and the world at large, if they had remained a part of the British Empire. That the evils of which they complained would, in due time, have been removed, upon proper representation, there is no substantial reason to doubt. That the principles of true freedom would have advanced and spread quite as rapidly, and that, to-day, liberty, in the broadest sense, would have reigned in the world fully as triumphant, the whole history of England and the United States sufficiently attest. It was many long years after Britain had struck off the chains of slavery before the United States reached the same point; and then only because it became a “military necessity.” Looking at the two nations to-day, and judging by the utterances of the two respective people, whether enunciated in the halls of legislature, by the head of the nation, by the bar, in the pulpit, by the press, or from the platform; or if we be guided by the public deeds of each, it is submitted that the more genuine ring of the metal sounds from beneath the wide-spreading banner of old England.
The effect of the successful rebellion, to which it is intended to refer, has reference to the United Empire Loyalists of America. And first, the effect upon them during the war.
The defeat of Burgoyne was the first event which immediately led to severe disaster of the loyalists. This general, with more assurance than foresight, and perhaps more courage than military skill, succeeded, not only in leading his army to destruction, but in placing the friendly inhabitants on his route in such a position that no mercy was subsequently extended to them by the ruthless rebels. When he surrendered, instead of securing for them immunity from any harm, he entirely neglected their interests; notwithstanding they had supplied his troops with provision. The relentless conduct of the rebels in arms and the whig government was bloodthirsty and vindictive. Their hate towards those who would not take sides with them, whether in arms for the Crown or not, was barbarous. Persons suspected of sympathy with the tories were subjects of continued molestation. Mobocracy reigned. Vagabond bodies of men were sent abroad to range the country, to lay waste and destroy the property of the loyalists, imprison the suspected, and seize the goods of the unprotected. Tarring and feathering was of common occurrence. Massachusetts especially gained a name for cruelty far exceeding any which has been applied to the Indians, with all their barbarism. There was a villainous band who called themselves the “Sons of Liberty,” who carried fire and sword—not against an open enemy in the light of day, but to peaceful firesides in the darkness of night. Their victims were the old men, the women and children, and the defenceless. Old men and children were driven to the woods for shelter, or placed in a closed room, and, with chimney stopped, smoked to suffocation. Females were subject to insult and the most fiendish treatment. Dwellings were fired at night, and their occupants left houseless, and exposed to the inclemency of the weather.
Suspected persons were arrested and put to terrible torture, such as attaching a rope to the neck and hauling