The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American RevolutionStark, James Henry
History
The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution
Stark, James Henry
American loyalists -- Massachusetts; Massachusetts -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783
The political turmoil in the midst of which Mr. Murray found himself
upon his removal to Boston, in 1765, filled him with surprise and
dismay. He had hoped, on leaving North Carolina, that he was turning his
back upon rebellion, but here he had alighted upon the very seat of
disorder. By force of circumstances, as well as by inclination, it was
inevitable that in North Carolina, and afterwards in Massachusetts, his
associates should have been those whose sympathies were on the side of
law and order. The Boston of the disunionists, of Otis, Hancock, and the
"brace of Adams" he never knew. "He shared so completely Hutchinson's
convictions that the best interests of America were being sacrificed" by
the very men who maintained they were asserting their rights and
although, like those who sided with the Government, he incurred
suspicion and hatred, he never to the end of his life could see himself
as an enemy to the land he helped to build.[185]
[185] James Murray, Loyalist; pp. 152, 154, 155.
To such men as him, men who were averse to partisanship and whose
interests centered wholly within the domestic circle, yet who could
take a large impersonal view of passing events, the inevitable ban
under which, as Tories, they afterward fell, bore all the sting of
injustice. He wrote in 1766, "the truth is we are all the children of a
most indulgent Parent, who has never asserted his authority over us,
until we are grown almost to manhood and act accordingly; but were I to
say so here before our Chief Ruler, the Mob, or any of their adherents,
I should presently have my house turned inside out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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