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
In describing the government of the colonies at the outbreak of the
Revolution, he made the following statement: "The government of England
was, in the main, a gentle government, much as our fathers complained of
it. Her yoke was easy and her burden was light; our fathers were a
hundred times better off in 1775 than were the men of Kent, the vanguard
of liberty in England. There was more happiness in Middlesex on the
Concord, than there was in Middlesex on the Thames."[1] A few years
later Hon. Edward B. Callender, a Republican candidate for mayor of
Boston, in his campaign speech said: "I know something about how this
city started. It was not made by the rich men or the so-called
high-toned men of Boston--they were with the other party, with the king;
they were Loyalists. Boston was founded by the ordinary man--by Paul
Revere, the coppersmith; Sam Adams, the poor collector of the town of
Boston, who did not hand over to the town even the sums he collected as
taxes; by John Hancock, the smuggler of rum; by John Adams, the
attorney, who naively remarked in his book that after the battle of
Lexington they never heard anything about the suits against John
Hancock. Those were settled."[2]
[1] Speech of Senator Hoar at South Boston, March 18, 1901.
[2] Speech of Hon. Edward B. Callender, at Dorchester, Nov. 10, 1905.
These words of our venerable and learned senator and our State Senator
Edward B. Callender, seemed strangely unfamiliar to us who had derived
our history of the Revolution from the school text-books. These had
taught us that the Revolution was due solely to the oppression and
tyranny of the British, and that Washington, Franklin, Adams, Hancock,
Otis, and the host of other Revolutionary patriots, had in a supreme
degree all the virtues ever exhibited by men in their respective
spheres, and that the Tories or Loyalists, such as Hutchinson, the
Olivers, Saltonstalls, Winslows, Quincys and others, were to be detested
and their memory execrated for their abominable and unpatriotic actions.
This led me to inquire and to examine whether there might not be two
sides to the controversy which led to the Revolutionary War. I soon
found that for more than a century our most gifted writers had almost
uniformly suppressed or misrepresented all matter bearing upon one side
of the question, and that it would seem to be settled by precedent that
this nation could not be trusted with all portions of its own history.
But it seemed to me that history should know no concealment. The people
have a right to the whole truth, and to the full benefit of unbiased
historical teachings, and if, in an honest attempt to discharge a duty
to my fellow citizens, I relate on unquestionable authority facts that
politic men have intentionally concealed, let no man say that I wantonly
expose the errors of the fathers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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