of their entire property, or deprived of it wholly, or banished from the country.[170] In Rhode Island, death and confiscation of estate were the punishments provided by law for any person who communicated with the ministry or their agents, afforded supplies to their forces, or piloted the armed ships of the king; and certain persons were pronounced by name enemies to liberty, and their property forfeited in consequence. In Connecticut, where the loyalists were very numerous but inclined to be quiet if they were let alone, these offences only involved loss of estate and of liberty for a term not exceeding three years; but to speak, write, or act against the doings of Congress or the Assembly of Connecticut was punishable by disqualification from office, imprisonment, and the disarming the offender. The estates of those who sought the royal fleets or land forces for shelter might, by law, be seized and confiscated. In her treatment of loyalists Connecticut showed the same shrewd sense that had characterized the proceedings of that republic from its earliest days; and the result was seen in the fact that the loyalists, instead of being alienated, became after the war was over some of her best and most patriotic citizens. William Samuel Johnson, who during part of the war, at least, was under surveillance as a suspected Tory, but who when the war was over was one of Connecticut’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and Seabury, the author of the clever and exasperating “A. W. Farmer” letters, who had been pulled through the mud by Sons of Liberty at New Haven, were none the less loyal citizens of the commonwealth and of the nation, and none the less respected by men who had differed from them, because they had been loyal to their convictions of duty. In Massachusetts, the feeling was much more bitter, and, in addition to the special act already mentioned, any person suspected of enmity to the Whig cause might be arrested under a magistrate’s warrant and banished, unless he would swear fealty to the friends of liberty; and the selectmen of towns could prefer in town meeting charges of political treachery and the individual thus accused, if convicted by a jury, could be sent into the enemy’s jurisdiction. By a second special act the property of twenty-nine persons, “notorious conspirators,” was confiscated; of these, fifteen had been “mandamus” councillors; two, governors of the province; one, lieutenant-governor; one, treasurer; one, secretary; one, attorney-general; one, chief-justice; and four, commissioners of customs. The State of Virginia, though passing no special acts, passed a resolution 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. In New York, the county commissioners were authorized to apprehend and decide upon the guilt of such inhabitants as were