Morris, Morgan, and Carleton were the three busiest men in New York. Forty thick manuscript volumes still show Maurice Morgan's assiduous work as Carleton's confidential secretary. But Morris had the more heart-breaking duty of the three, with no relief, day after sorrow-laden day, from the anguishing appeals of Loyalist widows, orphans, and other ruined refugees. No sooner had the dire news arrived that peace had been made with the Congress, and that each of the thirteen United States was free to show uncovenanted mercies towards its own Loyalists, than the exodus began. Five thousand five hundred and ninety-three Loyalists sailed for Halifax in the first convoy on the 17th of April with a strong recommendation from Carleton to Governor Parr of Nova Scotia. 'Many of these are of the first families and born to the fairest possessions. I therefore beg that you will have them properly considered.' Shipping was scarce; for the hostility of the whole foreign naval world had made enormous demands on the British navy and mercantile marine. So six thousand Loyalists had to march overland to join Carleton's vessels at New York, some of them from as far south as Charlottesville, Virginia. They were carefully shepherded by Colonel Alured Clarke, of whom we shall hear again. Meanwhile Carleton and Washington had exchanged the usual compliments on the conclusion of peace and had met each other on the 6th of May at Tappan, where they discussed the exchange of prisoners. By the terms of the treaty the British were to evacuate New York, their last foothold in the new republic, with all practicable dispatch; so, as summer changed into autumn, the Congress became more and more impatient to see the last of them. But Carleton would not go without the Loyalists, whose many tributary streams of misery were still flowing into New York. In September, when the treaty of peace was ratified in Europe, the Congress asked Carleton point-blank to name the date of his own departure. But he replied that this was impossible and that the more the Loyalists were persecuted the longer he would be obliged to stay. The correspondence between him and the Congress teems with complaints and explanations. The Americans were very anxious lest the Loyalists should take away any goods and chattels not their own, particularly slaves. Carleton was disposed to consider slaves as human beings, though slavery was still the law in the British oversea dominions, and so the Americans felt uneasy lest he might discriminate between their slaves and other chattels. Reams of the Carleton papers are covered with descriptive lists of claimed and counter-claimed niggers--Julius Caesars, Jupiters, Venuses, Dianas, and so on, who were either 'stout wenches' and 'likely fellows' or 'incurably lazy' and 'old worn-outs.'