A history of Canada, 1763-1812

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

In the negotiations, which preceded the conclusion of peace, no point was more strongly debated between the commissioners of the two countries than the question of the treatment to be awarded to those who had adhered to the British cause in the American states during the war. The British Government was bound in common honesty to use every effort to safeguard the lives and interests of those who had remained loyal under every stress of persecution. On the American side, on the other hand, there was the most bitter feeling against the Tories, as they were called, a feeling generally shared by the members of the revolutionary party from Washington downwards. As in all cases of the kind, Loyalists included good and bad, worthy and unworthy, interested placemen or merchants as well as men who acted on and suffered for principle alone. There were men among them of high standing and reputation, such as William Franklin the Loyalist Governor of New Jersey, only son of Benjamin Franklin, and Sir William Pepperell, grandson of the man who besieged and took Louisbourg in 1745. There were also men of the type of Arnold, who deserved to be held as traitors. Many of the Loyalists had fought hard, and barbarities could be laid, directly or indirectly, to their charge. Their record was associated with the memories of the border war, of Wyoming and Cherry Valley; but equally on the American side could be found instances of cruelty and ruthlessness. The war had been a civil war, long drawn out, spasmodic, fought through largely by guerilla bands. It did not lie with either side to monopolize claims to righteousness or to perpetuate bitterness against their foes.

The sufferings of the Loyalists were increased by the spasmodic operations of the English in the war,

There were two special causes which made the hard lot of the Loyalists harder than it might otherwise have been. The first was the unfortunate action of the English in occupying cities or tracts of country and then again abandoning them. When Howe evacuated Boston, over 900 Loyalists are said to have left with him for Halifax. When the British army was withdrawn from Philadelphia in June, 1778, 3,000 Loyalists followed in its train. But the misery caused by the uncertain policy of the British Government or the British generals cannot be measured merely by the actual number of refugees on each occasion. A very large proportion of the American population was at heart neutral, and they suffered from not knowing whom to trust and whom to obey at a given time and place. In the autumn of 1776 New Jersey was brought under complete British control. The disaster at Trenton supervened, and in about six months the whole country was given up. Much the same happened in the southern states; at one time the English, at another the Americans were masters of this or that district. The result was that bitterness was intensified by prolonged uncertainty and suspicion. Numbers of citizens, who only asked which master they should serve, suffered at the hands of both. There would have been far less misery and far better feeling if from the beginning to the end of the war certain areas and no more had always remained in British occupation, instead of towns and provinces being bandied about from one side to the other.

and by the separate action of the several States.

The second special cause of suffering to the Loyalists was the separate action of the several states. England was not fighting one nation but thirteen different communities; and it may be said that in each of the thirteen there was civil war. The smaller the area in which there is strife, the meaner and more bitter the strife will be. With a great national struggle were intertwined petty rivalries, local jealousies, family dissensions. Men remembered old grudges, paid off old scores, reproduced in the worst forms the features which in quieter times had disfigured the narrow provincial life of the separate states. Had the states been one instead of many, there would have been a wider patriotism and a broader outlook, for Congress with all its faults was a larger minded body than a state legislature. Had they again been all one, there would not have been a series of unwholesome precedents for persecution of the minority. As it was, each state passed law after law against the Loyalists, and each in its turn could point to what its neighbour had done, in the hope of making a further exhibition of patriotism, more extravagant and more unjust.

Powerlessness of Congress in the matter.

How helpless the central body was in the matter, as compared with the separate sovereign states, is shown by the wording of the fifth article of the Peace. All that the American commissioners could be induced to sign was that Congress should ‘earnestly recommend to the legislatures of the respective states’ a policy of amnesty and restitution. It does not seem to have been anticipated that the state legislatures would comply with the recommendation. At any rate it appears that the emissaries of the United States who conducted the peace negotiations were reluctant to consent even to this small concession; that it was in after years represented on the American side as a mere form of words, necessary to bring matters to a conclusion and to save the face of the British Government; that its inadequacy was hotly assailed in both Houses of the British Parliament; and that it proved to be as a matter of fact in the main a dead letter.

Debates in Parliament on the question of the Loyalists.

Very bitter were the comments made in Parliament upon these provisions in the treaty by the opponents of Shelburne’s ministry. On the 17th of February, 1783, the Preliminary Articles of Peace were discussed in either House. In the House of Lords Lord Carlisle led the attack, moving an amendment in which the subject of the The debate in the House of Lords. Loyalists was prominently mentioned. The terms of the amendment lamented the necessity for subscribing to articles ‘which, considering the relative situation of the belligerent Powers, we must regard as inadequate to our just expectations and derogatory to the honour and dignity of Great Britain’. Various strong speeches followed, Lord Walsingham did not mince his words, nor did Lord Townshend. Lord Stormont spoke of the Loyalists as ‘men whom Britain was bound in justice and honour, gratitude and affection, and every tie to provide for and protect. Yet alas for England as well as them they were made a price of peace’. Lord George Germain, now Lord Sackville, who had so largely contributed to the calamitous issue of the war, was to the front in condemning the cruel abandonment of the Loyalists. In order to prove the futility of the terms intended to safeguard their interests, he referred to a resolution passed by the Legislature of Virginia as late as the 17th of December previously, to the effect that all demands for restitution of confiscated property were wholly inadmissible. Lord Loughborough in a brilliant speech spoke out that ‘in ancient or in modern history there cannot be found an instance of so shameful a desertion of men who have sacrificed all to their duty and to their reliance upon our faith’. The House sat until 4.30 on the following morning, the attendance of peers being at one period of the debate larger than on any previous occasion in the reign of George the Third; and the division gave the Government a majority of thirteen.

Meanwhile the House of Commons were also engaged in discussing the Peace, and here Lord John Cavendish The Debate in the House of Commons. moved an amendment to the Address, which was supplemented by a further amendment in which Lord North raised the case of the Loyalists. The Government fared ill at the hands of the best speakers in the House, of all shades of opinion. ‘Never was the honour, the humanity, the principles, the policy of a nation so grossly abused,’ said Lord North now happy in opposition, ‘as in the desertion of those men who are now exposed to every punishment that desertion and poverty can inflict because they were not rebels,’ and he denounced the discrimination made in the fifth article of the Peace against those who had borne arms for Great Britain. Lord Mulgrave spoke of the Peace as ‘a lasting monument of national disgrace’. Fox was found in opposition to Shelburne with whom he had parted company, and on the same side as his old opponent Lord North with whom he was soon to join hands. Burke spoke of the vast number of Loyalists who ‘had been deluded by this country and had risked everything in our cause’. Sheridan used bitter words to the same effect; and even Wilberforce, who seconded the Address on the Government side, had The Government defeated. to own that, when he considered the case of the Loyalists, ‘there he saw his country humiliated.’ The debate went on through the night, and when the division was taken at 7.30 the next morning, the ministers found themselves beaten by sixteen votes.