SIR JOHN G. BOURINOT
In the American Revolutionary War there were many in the then new-born Republic who either refrained from participating or took the loyalist side in the conflict. These were called "United Empire Loyalists," for they clung to the unity of the empire and refused to ally themselves with their fellow-colonists in revolt. When the war was over, those who took up arms on the loyal side found themselves in a hopeless minority, loaded with obloquy, and subjected to indignity at the hands of the victorious republicans. Rather than live under these humiliating conditions, some of the Loyalists returned to England; but most of them, preferring voluntary expatriation in Western wilds to living in a country that had become independent through rebellion, sought new homes for themselves in Acadia and Canada.
Their act was not lost upon the home Government, for the latter sent instructions to Canada to make provision for their reception and settlement, and for the mitigation, in some measure, of their trials and privations. This provision consisted of seed, farm implements, tools for building purposes, and food and clothing for a year or two after settling in the country. To make good in part their losses the British Government also voted about three millions sterling to be divided among the incoming settlers, and gave them munificent grants of land, chiefly in the western portion of the country, the then virgin Province of Upper Canada. There, as well as in desirable locations in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, streamed in the Loyalists and their families, to begin their sad experience of exile in the wilderness. By their coming, Western Canada—chiefly on the banks of the St. Lawrence, on the Bay of Quinte, in the Niagara district, and round the shores of Lake Ontario—received that contribution of brawn and muscle so essential to the carving out of a new province and the founding of a strong and enduring community.
It was during Governor Haldimand's administration that one of the most important events in the history of Canada occurred as a result of the American War of Independence. This event was the coming to the Provinces of many thousand people, known as United Empire Loyalists, who, during the progress of the war, but chiefly at its close, left their old homes in the thirteen colonies. When the Treaty of 1783 was under consideration, the British representatives made an effort to obtain some practical consideration from the new nation for the claims of this unfortunate people who had been subject to so much loss and obloquy during the war. All that the English envoys could obtain was the insertion of a clause in the treaty to the effect that Congress would recommend to the legislatures of the several States measures of restitution—a provision which turned out, as Franklin intimated at the time, a perfect nullity. The English Government subsequently indemnified these people in a measure for their self-sacrifice, and among other things gave a large number of them valuable tracts of land in the Provinces of British North America. Many of them settled in Nova Scotia, others founded New Brunswick and Upper Canada, now Ontario. Their influence on the political fortunes of Canada has been necessarily very considerable. For years they and their children were animated by a feeling of bitter animosity against the United States, the effects of which could be traced in later times when questions of difference arose between England and her former colonies. They have proved with the French Canadians a barrier to the growth of any annexation party, and as powerful an influence in national and social life as the Puritan element itself in the Eastern and Western States.
Among the sad stories of the past the one which tells of the exile of the Loyalists from their homes, of their trials and struggles in the valley of the St. Lawrence, then a wilderness, demands our deepest sympathy. In the history of this continent it can be only compared with the melancholy chapter which relates the removal of the French population from their beloved Acadia. During the Revolution they comprised a very large, intelligent, and important body of people, in all the old colonies, especially in New York and at the South, where they were in the majority until the peace. They were generally known as Tories, while their opponents, who supported independence, were called Whigs. Neighbor was arrayed against neighbor, families were divided, the greatest cruelties were inflicted, as the war went on, upon men and women who believed it was their duty to be faithful to king and country.
As soon as the contest was ended, their property was confiscated in several States. Many persons were banished and prohibited from returning to their homes. An American writer, Sabine, tells us that previous to the evacuation of New York, in September, 1783, "upward of twelve thousand men, women, and children embarked at the city, at Long and Staten islands, for Nova Scotia and the Bahamas." Very wrong impressions were held in those days of the climate and resources of the Provinces to which these people fled. Time was to prove that the lot of many of the Loyalists had actually fallen in pleasant places, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Upper Canada; that the country where most of them settled was superior in many respects to the New England States, and equal to the State of New York, from which so many of them came.
It is estimated that between forty and fifty thousand people reached British North America by 1786. They commenced to leave their old homes soon after the breaking out of the war, but the great migration took place in 1783-1784. Many sought the shores of Nova Scotia, and founded the town of Shelburne, which at one time held a population of ten or twelve thousand souls, the majority of whom were entirely unsuited to the conditions of the rough country around them and soon sought homes elsewhere. Not a few settled in more favorable parts of Nova Scotia, and even in Cape Breton. Considerable numbers found rest in the beautiful valley of the St. John River, and founded the Province of New Brunswick. As many more laid the beginnings of Upper Canada, in the present county of Glengarry, in the neighborhood of Kingston and the Bay of Quinte, on the Niagara River, and near the French settlements on the Detroit. A few also settled in the country now known as the Eastern Townships of French Canada. A great proportion of the men were officers and soldiers of the regiments which were formed in several colonies out of the large loyal population.
Among them were also men who had occupied positions of influence and responsibility in their respective communities, divines, judges, officials, and landed proprietors, whose names were among the best in the old colonies, as they are certainly in Canada. Many among them gave up valuable estates which had been acquired by the energy of their ancestors. Unlike the Puritans who founded New England, they did not take away with them their valuable property in the shape of money and securities or household goods. A rude log hut by the side of a river or lake, where poverty and wretchedness were their lot for months, and even years in some cases, was the refuge of thousands, all of whom had enjoyed every comfort in well-built houses, and not a few even luxury in stately mansions, some of which have withstood the ravages of time and can still be pointed out in New England. Many of the Loyalists were quite unfitted for the rude experiences of a pioneer life, and years passed before they and their children conquered the wilderness and made a livelihood. The British Government was extremely liberal in its grants of lands to this class of persons in all the Provinces.
The Government supplied these pioneers in the majority of cases with food, clothing, and necessary farming implements. For some years they suffered many privations; one was called "the year of famine," when hundreds in Upper Canada had to live on roots and even the buds of trees or anything that might sustain life. Fortunately some lived in favored localities, where pigeons and other birds, and fish of all kinds, were plentiful. In the summer and fall there were quantities of wild fruit and nuts. Maple sugar was a great luxury, when the people once learned to make it from the noble tree, whose symmetrical leaf may well be made the Canadian national emblem. It took the people a long while to accustom themselves to the conditions of their primitive pioneer life, but now the results of the labors of these early settlers and their descendants can be seen far and wide in smiling fields, richly laden orchards, and gardens of old-fashioned flowers throughout the country which they first made to blossom like the rose. The rivers and lakes were the only means of communication in those early times, roads were unknown, and the wayfarer could find his way through the illimitable forests only by the help of the "blazed" trees and the course of streams. Social intercourse was infrequent except in autumn and winter, when the young managed to assemble as they always will. Love and courtship went on even in this wilderness, though marriage was uncertain, as the visits of clergymen were very rare in many places, and magistrates could alone tie the nuptial knot—a very unsatisfactory performance to the cooler lovers who loved their church, its ceremonies and traditions, as dearly as they loved their sovereign.
The story of those days of trial has not yet been adequately written; perhaps it never will be, for few of those pioneers have left records behind them. As we wander among the old burying-grounds of those founders of Western Canada and New Brunswick, and stand by the gray, moss-covered tablets, with names effaced by the ravages of years, the thought will come to us, what interesting stories could be told by those who are laid beneath the sod, of sorrows and struggles, of hearts sick with hope deferred, of expectations never realized, of memories of misfortune and disaster in another land where they bore so much for a stubborn and unwise king. Yet these grass-covered mounds are not simply memorials of suffering and privation; each could tell a story of fidelity to principle, of forgetfulness of self-interest, of devotion and self-sacrifice—the grandest story that human annals can tell—a story that should be ever held up to the admiration and emulation of the young men and women of the present times, who enjoy the fruits of the labors of those loyal pioneers.
Although no noble monument has yet been raised to the memory of these founders of new provinces—of English-speaking Canada; although the majority lie forgotten in old grave-yards where the grass has grown rank, and common flowers alone nod over their resting-places, yet the names of all are written in imperishable letters in Provincial annals. Those Loyalists, including the children of both sexes, who joined the cause of Great Britain before the Treaty of Peace in 1783, were allowed the distinction of having after their name the letters U. E. to preserve the memory of their fidelity to a United Empire. A Canadian of these modern days, who traces his descent from such a source, is as proud of his lineage as if he were a Derby or a Talbot of Malahide, or inheritor of other noble names famous in the annals of the English peerage.
The records of all the provinces show the great influence exercised on their material, political, and intellectual development by this devoted body of immigrants. For more than a century they and their descendants have been distinguished for the useful and important part they have taken in every matter deeply associated with the best interests of the country. In New Brunswick we find among those who did good service in their day and generation the names of Wilmot, Allen, Robinson, Jarvis, Hazen, Burpee, Chandler, Tilley, Fisher, Bliss, Odell, Botsford; in Nova Scotia, Inglis (the first Anglican bishop in the colonies), Wentworth, Brenton, Blowers (Chief Justice), Cunard, Cutler, Howe, Creighton, Chipman, Marshall, Halliburton, Wilkins, Huntingdon, Jones; in Ontario, Cartwright, Robinson, Hagerman, Stuart (the first Anglican clergyman), Gamble, Van Alstine, Fisher, Grass, Butler, Macaulay, Wallbridge, Chrysler, Bethune, Merritt, McNab, Crawford, Kirby, Tisdale, and Ryerson. Among these names stand out prominently those of Wilmot, Howe, and Huntingdon, who were among the fathers of responsible government; those of Tilley, Tupper, Chandler, and Fisher, who were among the fathers of confederation; of Ryerson, who exercised a most important influence on the system of free education which Ontario now enjoys. Among the eminent descendants of U. E. Loyalists are Sir Charles Tupper, long a prominent figure in politics; Christopher Robinson, a distinguished lawyer, who was counsel for Canada at the Bering Sea arbitration; Sir Richard Cartwright, a liberal leader remarkable for his keen, incisive style of debate, and his knowledge of financial questions; Honorable George E. Foster, a former finance minister of Canada. We might extend the list indefinitely did space permit. In all walks of life we see the descendants of the Loyalists, exercising a decided influence over the fortunes of the Dominion.
Conspicuous among the people who remained faithful to England during the American Revolution was the famous Iroquois chief Joseph Brant, best known by his Mohawk name of Thayendanegea, who took part in the war, and was for many years wrongly accused of having participated in the massacre and destruction of Wyoming, that beauteous vale of the Susquehanna. It was he whom the poet Campbell would have consigned to eternal infamy in the verse
"The mammoth comes—the foe, the monster, Brandt—
With all his howling, desolating band;
These eyes have seen their blade and burning pine
Awake at once, and silence half your land.
Red is the cup they drink, but not with wine—
Awake and watch to-night, or see no morning shine."
Posterity has, however, recognized the fact that Joseph Brant was not present at this sad episode of the American War, and the poet in a note to a later edition admitted that the Indian chief in his poem was "a pure and declared character of fiction." He was a sincere friend of English interests, a man of large and statesmanlike views, who might have taken an important part in colonial affairs had he been educated in these later times. When the war was ended, he and his tribe moved into the valley of the St. Lawrence, and received from the Government fine reserves of land on the Bay of Quinte, and on the Grand River in the western part of the Province of Upper Canada, where the prosperous city and county of Brantford and the township of Tyendinaga—a corruption of Thayendanegea—illustrate the fame he has won in Canadian annals. The descendants of his nation live in comfortable homes, till fine farms in a beautiful section of Western Canada, and enjoy all the franchises of white men. It is an interesting fact that the first church built in Ontario was that of the Mohawks, who still preserve the communion service presented to the tribe in 1710 by Queen Anne of England.
General Haldimand's administration will always be noted in Canadian history for the coming of the Loyalists, and for the sympathetic interest he took in settling these people on the lands of Canada, and in alleviating their difficulties by all the means in the power of his government. In these and other matters of Canadian interest he proved conclusively that he was not the mere military martinet that some Canadian writers with inadequate information would make him. When he left Canada he was succeeded by Sir Guy Carleton, then elevated to the peerage as Lord Dorchester.