“City Hall, New York, August 14, 1783.

“Notice is hereby given to all Loyalists within the lines, desirous to emigrate from this place before the final Evacuation, that they must give in their Names at the Adjutant-General’s Office, on or before the 21st instant, and be ready to embark by the end of this month.

“ABIJAH WILLARD.”

Before the arrival of the date, mentioned in the notice, 6,000 names were entered at the Adjutant-General’s Office for passages, and the evacuation proceeded as fast as the number of transports would admit. Four weeks later another and more emphatic notice was issued.

359

“City Hall, New York, September 12, 1783.

The Commissioners appointed to examine the Claims of Persons for Passages from this Place, give this Notice to all Loyalists, who have been recommended for Passages to Nova Scotia; that ships are prepared to receive them on board, and it is expected they will embark on or before the Twentieth Instant.

“And the Board have Authority further to declare. That if they neglect to embrace the opportunity now offered, they must not expect to be conveyed afterwards at the Public Expense.

ABIJAH WILLARD.”

There can be little doubt that many who continued to linger at New York would gladly have returned to their former places of abode, but the experience of the few days who attempted it was too discouraging. Here is an instance, as described by one of the American “patriots.”

“Last week there came one of the dam’d refugees from New York to a place called Wall-Kill, in order to make a tarry with his parents. He was taken into custody immediately, his head and eye brows were shaved—tarred and feathered—a hog yoke put on his neck, and a cow bell thereon; upon his head a very high cap of feathers was set, well plum’d with soft tar, and a sheet of paper in front, with a man drawn with two faces, representing Arnold and the Devil’s imps; and on the back of it a cow, with the refugee or tory driving her off.”

The forced migration of the Loyalists was a source of much amusement to the whigs of that day. A parody on Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To be or not to be,” was printed in the New Jersey Journal, under the title, The Tory’s Soliloquy. It begins:

“To go or not to go; that is the question,
Whether ’tis best to trust the inclement sky,
That scowl’s indignant, or the dreary bay
Of Fundy and Cape Sable’s rocks and shoals,
And seek our new domain in Scotia’s wilds,
Barren and bare, or stay among the rebels,
And by our stay rouse up their keenest rage.”

We have now to consider the circumstances under which the “Fall fleet” came to St. John.

After the cessation of hostilities, the violent temper manifested by the victorious Americans caused the officers of the Loyalist regiments to lay their case before Sir Guy Carleton in a letter dated March 14, 1783. They state, “That from the purest principles of loyalty and attachment to the British government they took up arms in his Majesty’s service, and, relying on the justice of their cause and the support of their Sovereign and the British nation, they have persevered with unabated zeal through all the vicissitudes of a calamitous and unfortunate war.... That whatever stipulations may be made at the peace for the restoration of the property of the Loyalists and permission for them to return home, yet, should the American Provinces be severed from the British Empire, it will be impossible for those who have served his Majesty in arms in this war to remain in the country. The personal animosities that arose from civil dissensions have been so heightened by the blood that has been shed in the contest that the parties can never be reconciled.” The letter goes on to speak of sacrifices of property and lucrative professions; of the anxiety felt for the future of wives and children; of the fidelity of the troops, who in the course of the contest had shown a degree of patience, fortitude and bravery almost without example; and of the great number of men incapacitated by wounds, 360 many having helpless families who had seen better days. In conclusion they make the following request:—