There are many facts regarding our conduct during the Revolution which are not pleasant to relate. For example, on June 1, 1775, Congress passed a resolution disclaiming any intention of invading Canada. The report of this decision was widely circulated in Canada. About four weeks later Congress secretly made plans for the invasion of Canada that fall. The invasion took place in September, 1775, but Canada drove the invaders back. (See Lecky, "The American Revolution," page 215.) Is there any difference between our invasion of Canada and the German invasion of Belgium? Many people suspected of being Tories were terribly badly treated. The New York legislature passed a resolution that Tories should be "deemed guilty of treason and should suffer death." They were often hunted by mobs, tarred and feathered, and killed. American troops set fire to the houses of the people to plunder and rob. In fact in some sections the colonists looked upon the British army with as much favor as the American army. New York alone confiscated $3,600,000 worth of property belonging to Tories, and all the states did likewise. During that entire period the Tories were the great sufferers. It is obvious that a person had as much legal and moral right to be a Tory as to be a Whig, provided he committed no act of violence against society, and the great majority of Tories had committed none. It was simply a question of difference in opinion. To punish a person for a difference of opinion cannot of course be harmonized with democracy,--majority rule does not mean coercion of minorities. Dictatorship of the majority can be the worst kind of despotism. When Great Britain recognized the independence of the colonies in 1783, one provision of the treaty agreed to by both parties was that the Tories should be compensated by the states for the property confiscated during the conflict. The states, however, did nothing about it, but treated that provision as a "scrap of paper."