The lack of a clergy was even more marked. When Bishop Mountain visited Upper Canada in 1794, he found only one Lutheran chapel and two Presbyterian churches between Montreal and Kingston. At Kingston he found 'a small but decent church,' and about the Bay of Quinte there were three or four log huts which were used by the Church of England missionary in the neighbourhood. At Niagara there was a clergyman, but no church; the services were held in the Freemasons' Hall. This lack of a regularly-ordained clergy was partly remedied by a number of itinerant Methodist preachers or 'exhorters.' These men were described by Bishop Mountain as 'a set of ignorant enthusiasts, whose preaching is calculated only to perplex the understanding, to corrupt the morals, to relax the nerves of industry, and dissolve the bands of society.' But they gained a very strong hold on the Loyalist population; and for a long time they were familiar figures upon the country roads.
For many years communications both in New Brunswick and in Upper Canada were mainly by water. The roads between the settlements were little more than forest paths. When Colonel Simcoe went to Upper Canada he planned to build a road running across the province from Montreal to the river Thames, to be called Dundas Street. He was recalled, however, before the road was completed; and the project was allowed to fall through. In 1793 an act was passed by the legislature of Upper Canada 'to regulate the laying out, amending, and keeping in repair, the public highways and roads.' This threw on the individual settler the obligation of keeping the road across his lot in good repair; but the large amount of crown lands and clergy reserves and land held by speculators throughout the province made this act of little avail. It was not until 1798 that a road was run from the Bay of Quinte to the head of Lake Ontario, by an American surveyor named Asa Danforth. But even this government road was at times impassable; and there is evidence that some travellers preferred to follow the shore of the lake.
It will be seen from these notes on social history that the Loyalists had no primrose path. But after the first grumblings and discontents, poured into the ears of Governor Haldimand and Governor Parr, they seem to have settled down contentedly to their lot; and their life appears to have been on the whole happy. Especially in the winter, when they had some leisure, they seem to have known how to enjoy themselves.
In the winter season, nothing is more ardently wished for, by young persons of both sexes, in Upper Canada, than the setting in of frost, accompanied by a fall of snow. Then it is, that pleasure commences her reign. The sleighs are drawn out. Visits are paid, and returned, in all directions. Neither cold, distance, or badness of roads prove any impediment. The sleighs glide over all obstacles. It would excite surprise in a stranger to view the open before the Governor's House on a levee morning, filled with these carriages. A sleigh would not probably make any great figure in Bond street, whose silken sons and daughters would probably mistake it for a turnip cart, but in the Canadas, it is the means of pleasure, and glowing healthful exercise. An overturn is nothing. It contributes subject matter for conversation at the next house that is visited, when a pleasant raillery often arises on the derangement of dress, which the ladies have sustained, and the more than usual display of graces, which the tumble has occasioned.
This picture, drawn in 1793 by a nameless traveller, is an evidence of the courage and buoyancy of heart with which the United Empire Loyalists faced the toils and privations of life in their new home.
Not drooping like poor fugitives they came
In exodus to our Canadian wilds,
But full of heart and hope, with heads erect
And fearless eyes victorious in defeat.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
It is astonishing how little documentary evidence the Loyalists left behind them with regard to their migration. Among those who fled to England there were a few who kept diaries and journals, or wrote memoirs, which have found their way into print; and some contemporary records have been published with regard to the settlements of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. But of the Loyalists who settled in Upper and Lower Canada there is hardly one who left behind him a written account of his experiences. The reason for this is that many of them were illiterate, and those who were literate were so occupied with carving a home for themselves out of the wilderness that they had neither time nor inclination for literary labours. Were it not for the state papers preserved in England, and for a collection of papers made by Sir Frederick Haldimand, the Swiss soldier of fortune who was governor of Quebec at the time of the migration, and who had a passion for filing documents away, our knowledge of the settlements in the Canadas would be of the most sketchy character.
It would serve no good purpose to attempt here an exhaustive account of the printed sources relating to the United Empire Loyalists. All that can be done is to indicate some of the more important. The only general history of the Loyalists is Egerton Ryerson, The Loyalists of America and Their Times (2 vols., 1880); it is diffuse and antiquated, and is written in a spirit of undiscriminating admiration of the Loyalists, but it contains much good material. Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (2 vols., 1864), is an old book, but it is a storehouse of information about individual Loyalists, and it contains a suggestive introductory essay. Some admirable work on the Loyalists has been done by recent American historians. Claude H. Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the American Revolution (1902), is a readable and scholarly study, based on extensive researches into documentary and newspaper sources. The Loyalist point of view will be found admirably set forth in M. C. Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution (2 vols., 1897), and The Party of the Loyalists in the American Revolution (American Historical Review, I, 24). Of special studies in a limited field the most valuable and important is A. C. Flick, Loyalism in New York (1901); it is the result of exhaustive researches, and contains an excellent bibliography of printed and manuscript sources. Other studies in a limited field are James H. Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution (1910), and G. A. Gilbert, The Connecticut Loyalists (American Historical Review, IV, 273).
For the settlements of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the most important source is The Winslow Papers (edited by W. O. Raymond, 1901), an admirably annotated collection of private letters written by and to Colonel Edward Winslow. Some of the official correspondence relating to the migration is calendared in the Historical Manuscript Commission's Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain (1909), Much material will be found in the provincial histories of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, such as Beamish Murdoch, A History of Nova Scotia or Acadie (3 vols., 1867), and James Hannay, History of New Brunswick (2 vols., 1909), and also in the local and county histories. The story of the Loyalists of Prince Edward Island is contained in W. H. Siebert and Florence E. Gilliam, The Loyalists in Prince Edward Island (Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 3rd series, IV, ii, 109). An account of the Shelburne colony will be found in T. Watson Smith, The Loyalists at Shelburne (Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, VI, 53).