Nor can there be any doubt that the coming of the Loyalists hastened the advent of free institutions. It was the settlement of Upper Canada that rendered the Quebec Act of 1774 obsolete, and made necessary the Constitutional Act of 1791, which granted to the Canadas representative assemblies. The Loyalists were Tories and Imperialists; but, in the colonies from which they came, they had been accustomed to a very advanced type of democratic government, and it was not to be expected that they would quietly reconcile themselves in their new home to the arbitrary system of the Quebec Act. The French Canadians, on the other hand, had not been accustomed to representative institutions, and did not desire them. But when Upper Canada was granted an assembly, it was impossible not to grant an assembly to Lower Canada too; and so Canada was started on that road of constitutional development which has brought her to her present position as a self-governing unit in the British Empire.
CHAPTER II
LOYALISM IN THE THIRTEEN COLONIES
It was a remark of John Fiske that the American Revolution was merely a phase of English party politics in the eighteenth century. In this view there is undoubtedly an element of truth. The Revolution was a struggle within the British Empire, in which were aligned on one side the American Whigs supported by the English Whigs, and on the other side the English Tories supported by the American Tories. The leaders of the Whig party in England, Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke, Colonel Barré, the great Chatham himself, all championed the cause of the American revolutionists in the English parliament. There were many cases of Whig officers in the English army who refused to serve against the rebels in America. General Richard Montgomery, who led the revolutionists in their attack on Quebec in 1775-76, furnishes the case of an English officer who, having resigned his commission, came to America and, on the outbreak of the rebellion, took service in the rebel forces. On the other hand there were thousands of American Tories who took service under the king’s banner; and some of the severest defeats which the rebel forces suffered were encountered at their hands.
It would be a mistake, however, to identify too closely the parties in England with the parties in America. The old Tory party in England was very different from the so-called Tory party in America. The term Tory in America was, as a matter of fact, an epithet of derision applied by the revolutionists to all who opposed them. The opponents of the revolutionists called themselves not Tories, but Loyalists or ‘friends of government.’
There were, it is true, among the Loyalists not a few who held language that smacked of Toryism. Among the Loyalist pamphleteers there were those who preached the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. Thus the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, a clergyman of Virginia, wrote:
Having then, my brethren, thus long been tossed to and fro in a wearisome circle of uncertain traditions, or in speculations and projects still more uncertain, concerning government, what better can you do than, following the apostle’s advice, ‘to submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake; whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well? For, so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men; as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as servants of God. Honour all men: love the brotherhood: fear God: honour the king.’
Jonathan Boucher subscribed to the doctrine of the divine right of kings:
Copying after the fair model of heaven itself, wherein there was government even among the angels, the families of the earth were subjected to rulers, at first set over them by God. ‘For there is no power, but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.’ The first father was the first king.... Hence it is, that our church, in perfect conformity with the doctrine here inculcated, in her explication of the fifth commandment, from the obedience due to parents, wisely derives the congenial duty of ‘honouring the king, and all that are put in authority under him.’
Dr Myles Cooper, the president of King’s College, took up similar ground. God, he said, established the laws of government, ordained the British power, and commanded all to obey authority. ‘The laws of heaven and earth’ forbade rebellion. To threaten open disrespect of government was ‘an unpardonable crime.’ ‘The principles of submission and obedience to lawful authority’ were religious duties.