American loyalists; Andros, Edmund, Sir, 1637-1714; Society of Friends -- New England; Witchcraft -- New England
[161] A specimen from a comparatively moderate article upon the
loyalists may serve to substantiate the statement of the text (_No.
Am. Rev._, lxv. p. 142): “The meanest, most dastardly, and most cruel
scenes and deeds of the Revolution were enacted as the proper fruits
of a civil war by a large majority of the Tories, who remained at
home, and who, as regulars, as volunteers, in gangs, or as individual
outlaws, were the instigators of nearly every foul and atrocious act in
the whole strife. It is from these, the majority of the whole number,
that the name of Tory has received its hateful associations, which will
cling to it to the end of time. A class that includes an Arnold and
a Butler can never hope for complete redemption, at least so long as
Judas remains in ‘his own place.’”
One is glad to appeal from this intemperate and exaggerated language
to the essay upon the loyalists by Dr. George E. Ellis, in Winsor’s
_Narrative and Critical History_, vol. vii. It would be as undesirable
as it is unnecessary to supply, as could readily be done, instances of
gross cruelty and barbarity inflicted by the Whigs upon the unfortunate
loyalists “who remained at home.” The Correspondence of Lord Cornwallis
gives a most painful picture of the condition of things in the South
(_Corr._, i. 73), and the letters of Count Fersen, who cannot be
suspected of prejudice, reveal the hardly less savage condition of
affairs in the North. He says, for example, of Rhode Island (_Letters_,
i. 40, 41):
“C’est un pays qui sera fort heureux s’il jouit d’une paix longue,
et si les deux partis qui le divisent à present ne lui font subir le
sort de la Pologne et de tant d’autres républiques. Ces deux partes
sont appelés les Whigs et les Torys. Le premier est entièrement pour
la liberté et l’independance; il est composé de gens de la plus basse
extraction qui ne possédent point de biens; la plupart des habitants de
la compagne en sont. Les Torys sont pour les Anglais, ou, pour mieux
dire, pour la paix, sans trop se soucier d’être libres ou dépendants;
ce sont les gens d’une classe plus distinguée, les seuls qui eussent
des biens dans le pays. Lorsque les Whigs sont les plus forts, ils
pillent les autres tant qu’ils peuvent.”
[162] Simcoe, Lt.-Col. J. G., _A History of the Operations of a
Partisan Corps called the Queen’s Rangers, commanded by Lt.-Col. J. G.
Simcoe, during the war of the American Revolution_. New York: Bartlett
and Welford, 1884, 8vo, pp. 328.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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