The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution

by James Henry Stark

In June, 1763, a confederation, including several Indian tribes, suddenly and unexpectedly swept over the whole western frontier of Pennsylvania and Virginia. They murdered almost all the English settlers who were scattered beyond the mountains, surprised every British fort between the Ohio and Lake Erie, and closely blockaded Forts Detroit and Pitt. In no previous war had the Indians shown such skill, tenacity, and concert, and had there not been British troops in the country the whole of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland would have been overrun.

The war lasted fourteen months, and most of the hard fighting was done by English troops, assisted by militia from some of the Southern colonies. General Amherst called upon the New England colonies to help their brethren, but his request was almost disregarded. Connecticut sent 250 men, but Massachusetts, being beyond the zone of immediate danger, would give no assistance. After a war of extreme horror, peace was signed September, 1764. In a large degree by the efforts of English soldiers Indian territory was rolled back, and one more great service was rendered by England to her colonies, and also the necessity was shown for a standing army.[6]

The "French and Indian War," as it was commonly called, waged with so much energy and success, doubled the national debt of England and made taxation oppressive in that country. The war had been waged mainly for the benefit of the colonists, and as it was necessary to maintain a standing army to protect the conquered territory, it was considered but reasonable that part of the expense should be borne by the Americans. This was especially so in view that the conquest of Canada had been a prime object of statesmen and leading citizens of the colonies for many years.

It has been said on good authority that Franklin brought about the expedition against Canada that ended with Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham. In all companies and on all occasions he had urged conquest of Canada as an object of the utmost importance. He said it would inflict a blow upon the French power in America from which it would never recover, and would have lasting influence in advancing the prosperity of the British colonies. Franklin was one of the shrewdest statesmen of the age. After egging England on to the capture of Canada from the French, and then removing the most dreaded enemy of the colonies, he won the confidence of the court and people of France, and obtained their aid to deprive England of the best part of a continent. He was genial, thrifty, and adroit, and his jocose wisdom was never more tersely expressed than when he advised the signers of the Declaration of Independence to "hang together or they would hang separately."

At the conclusion of the Peace of Paris in 1763, Great Britain had ceased to be an insular kingdom, and had become a world-wide empire, consisting of three grand divisions: the British Islands, India, and a large part of North America. In Ireland an army of ten or twelve thousand men were maintained by Irish resources, voted by an Irish Parliament and available for the general defence of the empire. In India a similar army was maintained by the despotic government of the East India Company. English statesmen believed that each of these great parts of the empire should contribute to the defence of the whole, and that unless they should do so voluntarily it was their opinion, in which the great lawyers of England agreed, that power to force contributions resided in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, and should be exercised. It was thought that an army of ten thousand men was necessary to protect the territory won from France and to keep the several tribes of American Indians in subjection, especially as it was believed that the French would endeavor to recapture Canada at the first opportunity.

Americans, it should be remembered, paid no part of the interest on the national debt of England, amounting to one hundred and forty million pounds, one-half of which had been contracted in the French and Indian war. America paid nothing to support the navy that protected its coasts, although the American colonies were the most prosperous and lightly taxed portion of the British Empire. Grenville, Chancellor of the Exchequer, asked the Americans to contribute one hundred thousand pounds a year, about one-third of the expense of maintaining the proposed army, and about one-third of one percent of the sum we now pay each year for pensions. He promised distinctly that the army should never be required to serve except in America and the West India islands, but he could not persuade the colonists to agree among themselves on a practical plan for raising the money, and so it was proposed to resort to taxation by act of Parliament. At the time he made this proposal he assured the Americans that the proceeds of the tax should be expended solely in America, and that if they would raise the money among themselves in their own way he would be satisfied. He gave them a year to consider the proposition. At the end of the year they were as reluctant as ever to tax themselves for their own defence or submit to taxation by act of Parliament. Then the stamp act was passed—it was designed to raise one hundred thousand pounds a year, and then the trouble began that led to the dismemberment of the empire. Several acute observers had already predicted that the triumph of England over France would be soon followed by a revolt of the colonies. Kalm, the Swedish traveller, contended in 1748 that the presence of the French in Canada, by making the English colonists depend for their security on the support of the mother country, was the main cause of the submission of the colonies. A few years later Argenson, who had left some of the most striking political predictions upon record, foretold in his Memoirs that the English colonies in America would one day rise against the mother country, that they would form themselves into a republic and astonish the world by their prosperity. The French ministers consoled themselves for the Peace of Paris by the reflection that the loss of Canada was a sure prelude to the independence of the colonies, and Vergennes, the sagacious French ambassador at Constantinople, predicted to an English traveller, with striking accuracy, the events that would occur. "England," he said, "will soon repent having removed the only check that would keep her colonies in awe. They stand no longer in need of her protection; she will call upon them to contribute towards supporting the burden they have helped to bring on her, and they will answer by striking off all dependence."[7]

It is not to be supposed that Englishmen were wholly blind to this danger. One of the ablest advocates of the retention of Canada was Lord Bath, who published a pamphlet on the subject, which had a very wide influence and a large circulation.[8] There were, however, some politicians who maintained that it would be wiser to restore Canada and to retain Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, and Martinique. This view was supported with distinguished talent in an anonymous reply to Lord Bath.

This writer argued "that we had no original right to Canada, and that the acquisition of a vast, barren, and almost uninhabited country lying in an inhospitable climate, and with no commerce except that of furs and skins, was economically far less valuable to England than the acquisition of Guadaloupe, which was one of the most important of the sugar islands. The acquisition of these islands would give England the control of the West Indies, and it was urged that an island colony is more advantageous than a continental one, for it is necessarily more dependent upon the mother country. In the New England provinces there are already colleges and academies where the American youths can receive their education. America produces or can easily produce almost everything she wants. Her population and her wealth are rapidly increasing, and as the colonies recede more and more from the sea, the necessity of their connection with England will steadily diminish. They will have nothing to expect, they must live wholly by their own labor, and in process of time will know little, inquire little, and care little, about the mother country. If the people of our colonies find no check from Canada they will extend themselves almost without bounds into inland parts. What the consequences will be to have a numerous, hardy, independent people, possessed of a strong country, communicating little, or not at all, with England, I leave to your own reflections. By eagerly grasping at extensive territory we may run the risk, and that, perhaps, in no distant period, of losing what we now possess. The possession of Canada, far from being necessary to our safety, may in its consequences be even dangerous. A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is not always the worst of neighbors; there is a balance of power in America as well as in Europe."[9]

These views are said to have been countenanced by Lord Hardwicke, but the tide of opinion ran strongly in the opposite direction; the nations had learned to look with pride and sympathy upon that greater England which was growing up beyond the Atlantic, and there was a desire, which was not ungenerous or ignoble, to remove at any risk the one obstacle to its future happiness. These arguments were supported by Franklin, who in a remarkable pamphlet sketched the great undeveloped capabilities of the colonies, and ridiculed the "visionary fear" that they would ever combine against England. "This jealousy of each other," he said, "is so great that, however necessary a union of the colonies has long been for their common defence and security against their enemies, yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves. If they cannot agree to unite for defence against the French and Indians, can it reasonably be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which protects and encourages them, with which they have so many connections and ties of blood, interest, and affection, and which it is well known, they all love much more than they love one another."[10]

Within a few years after Franklin made this statement he did more than any other man living to carry into effect the "visionary fear" which he had ridiculed.