American loyalists; Andros, Edmund, Sir, 1637-1714; Society of Friends -- New England; Witchcraft -- New England
We cannot wonder at the indignant words with which Mr. Jones closes his
recital of this vandalism. “If Great Britain had, instead of governing
by military law, by courts of police, and courts martial, revived the
civil law, opened the courts of justice, invested the civil magistrates
with their full power, and convened general assemblies in New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and in South and North
Carolina (as well as in Georgia, where it produced the most salutary
effects), as the rebels abandoned these provinces and fled before
the British arms; and prevented, by severely punishing, all kinds of
plunder, rapine, and pillage committed by the army, the rebellion
in all probability would have terminated in a different manner. The
empire would not have been disgraced or dishonored, nor Great Britain
reduced to the necessity of asking pardon of her ungrateful children,
acknowledging herself in the wrong, and granting them absolute,
unconditional independence. But, alas! the very reverse of this
marked every step in the royal army in all its proceedings, and Great
Britain, as well as the Independent States of America, feel to this
day the dire effects of a conduct so very impolitic, so unmilitary, so
unjustifiable, and so repugnant to the Constitution, the spirit, the
honor, and the sentiments of Englishmen.[169]
And now let us inquire how the loyalists were treated by the new
governments of the various states. Besides the irregular violence to
which the unfortunate loyalists were exposed at the hands of Sons of
Liberty and town committeemen, they were marked out for punishment
and plunder by the new state governments as they came into existence.
The State of Massachusetts proscribed three hundred and eight persons
by name, whom it condemned, if ever found within its borders, to
imprisonment and eventual banishment; and if they ventured to return,
it denounced the death penalty upon them. Not all of these were the
wealthy merchants and lawyers who had offended the populace by their
addresses to Hutchinson and Gage; at least a fifth of the number were
from the middle classes of society, and some of them were of still
humbler position. The State of New Hampshire, small as its population
was at that time, banished seventy-six by name and confiscated
twenty-eight estates. New York attainted and confiscated the property
of fifty-nine persons by name, three of whom were women whose chief
offence lay in the attractiveness of their estates. Pennsylvania
summoned sixty-two persons to surrender themselves for trial for
treason, and on their failing to appear they were pronounced attainted,
and thirty-six estates were confiscated. In Delaware the property of
forty-six refugees was confiscated. In North Carolina, sixty-five
estates were confiscated. In South Carolina, for the offence of
attachment to the royal cause in different degrees of offensiveness,
two hundred and fifteen persons were either fined twelve per cent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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