The loyalists, or tories as they were called, comprised, in addition to the royal officers, many of the best and most cultivated people in the colonies, a majority of the larger landowners, by far the greater number of the episcopal clergy together with some other religious teachers, very many physicians, fewer lawyers, though some of the most eminent among them, and many of the wealthier merchants, who disliked the interruption of trade and believed that its prosperity depended on British commerce. Among the lower classes some farmers, mechanics, and labourers were loyalists. They were weakest in New England, though fairly numerous in Connecticut. New York was throughout the loyalist stronghold, and, of the other middle colonies, Pennsylvania was disinclined to revolution and New Jersey contained a strong loyalist minority. In the southern colonies they were about as numerous as the whigs, and in South Carolina and Georgia perhaps outnumbered them. John Adams, who would be inclined to underestimate their number, thought that they were a third of the population of the thirteen colonies. The number on each side fluctuated from time to time; the loyalists claimed to be in a majority, and it is probable that at least half of the most respected part of the population were throughout the struggle either avowedly or secretly averse from revolution.[94] At the lowest computation 20,000 loyalists joined the British army, and some thirty regiments or battalions of them were regularly organised and paid. Most of them were peaceable men, not more inclined for fighting than the mass of their opponents who were forced into war by an active minority. Through the skilful management of this minority the loyalists were disarmed everywhere at the beginning of the struggle. They suffered terrible persecution. A man suspected of loyalism would be summoned to a meeting of the "sons of liberty," and ordered to take an oath to them. If he refused he was tarred and feathered, or set to ride upon a rail, and his house was defiled with filth. Loyalists were declared liable to imprisonment, exile, and confiscation. These men were not less patriotic than the revolutionists; they believed that the welfare of their country depended on its remaining part of the British empire; and holding this belief they suffered, fought, and died for their country's sake. [Sidenote: _A GENERAL ELECTION._]