It is not alone the motives which constituted the mainsprings of the rebels’ action that we place in the balance, but their conduct towards those who differed from them. Individual instances of cruelty we shall have occasion to introduce; but it may here be said that it was the tories who acted as the conservators of peace against a mobocracy, and consequently were made to suffer great afflictions. It was because of this they were forced away to live and die as aliens to the land of their birth. The tories were Americans as well as the whigs; and when at last Great Britain ceased to try to coerce the colonies, and their independence was secured, then a nobler spirit should have obtained among the conquerors, and no one, because he had conscientiously been a conservative, should have been treated with opprobrium. It always becomes the victorious to be generous; and we, with all respect to many American friends, submit that, had patriotism alone actuated the revolutionary party, the American loyalists would have been invited to join with the whigs in erecting a mighty nation. Had _freedom_, indeed, been the watchword then, as it has flauntingly been since, it would have been conceded that the tory had a right to his opinion as well as the whig to his. Do the Americans descant upon the wisdom and far-seeing policy of those who signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the constitution of the Union? Monroe, we doubt not, had a different opinion when he begot the doctrine “America for the Americans.” Had the U. E. Loyalists been treated honorably; had they been allowed but their rights; had they not been driven away; then the name _British American_ would forever have passed away; and instead of a belt of British provinces on their north, to constitute a ceaseless cause of misunderstanding with England, the star-spangled banner would, doubtless, long ago, have peacefully floated over all our land. Looking at the subject from this (an American) stand-point, we see that a shortsighted policy—a vindictive feeling, a covetous desire for the property of the tories—controlled the movements of the hour; and when the terms of peace were signed the birthright of the American tory was signed away, and he became forever an alien. But, as we shall see, he, in consequence, became the founder of a Province which, like a rock, has resisted, and ever will resist, the northward extension of the United States. MOTIVES OF THE LOYALISTS.