Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence nine were born in Massachusetts, seven in Virginia, six in Maryland, five in Connecticut, four in New Jersey, four in Pennsylvania, four in South Carolina, three in New York, three in Delaware, two in Rhode Island, one in Maine, three in Ireland, two in England, two in Scotland, and one in Wales. Of these twenty-one were attornies; ten merchants; four physicians; three farmers; one clergyman; one printer; and ten men of fortune.

THE MOTIVES.

But let us more carefully consider the motives in connection with the rebellion of ‘76. So assiduously have our fathers, the U. E. Loyalists, been branded by most American writers as altogether base, that it becomes us to cast back the mis-statements—​to tear away the specious covering of the American revolutionary heroes, and throw the sunlight of truth upon their character, and dispel the false, foul stigma, which the utterances of eighty years have essayed to fasten upon the noble band of Loyalists.

Up to 1776, the whigs as well as the tories were United Empire Loyalists; and it was only when the king’s forces required taxes; when the colonists were requested no longer to smuggle; when they could not dispossess the tories of the power and emoluments of office—​it was only then that the Declaration of Independence was signed by those more particularly interested. John Hancock, whose name stands first upon the document, in such bold characters, had been a successful smuggler, whereby he had acquired his millions, and no wonder he staked his thousands on the issue. Evidence is not wanting to show that many of the leaders of the rebellion, had they been holders of office, would have been as true to the British Crown as were those whom they envied. Every man who took part on the rebel side has been written a hero; but it is asking too much to request us to believe that all the holders of office were base, and lost to the feelings of natural independence and patriotism; more especially when a large proportion of them were, admittedly, educated and religious men; while, on the contrary, the rebels alone were actuated by patriotism and the nobler feelings of manhood. Apart from the merits or demerits of their cause, it must be admitted that the circumstances of the times force upon us the thought that a comparatively few needy office-seekers, or lookers-after other favors from the Crown, not being able to obtain the loaves and fishes, began to stir up strife. A few, possessed of sufficient education, by the aid of the wealthy contraband traders, were enabled, by popular sensational speeches and inflammatory pamphlets, to arouse the feelings of the uneducated; and, finally, to create such a current of political hatred to the Crown that it could not be stayed, and which swept away the ties that naturally attached them to Great Britain.

We may easily imagine the surprise which many experienced in after days, when the war had ended and their independence was acknowledged, to find themselves heroes, and their names commemorated as fathers of their country; whereas they had fought only for money or plunder, or smuggled goods, or because they had not office. In not a few cases it is such whose names have served for the high-sounding fourth of July orators; for the buncombe speechifier and the flippant editor, to base their eulogistic memoriams. Undoubtedly there are a few entitled to the place they occupy in the temple of fame; but the vast majority seem to have been actuated by mercenary motives. We have authenticated cases where prominent individuals took sides with the rebels because they were disappointed in obtaining office; and innumerable instances where wealthy persons were arrested, ostensibly on suspicion, and compelled to pay large fines, and then set at liberty. No feudal tyrant of Europe in the olden times enforced black mail from the traveller with less compunction than rebel “committees” exacted money from wealthy individuals who desired simply to remain neutral.

It has been said that Otis, a name revered by the Americans, actually avowed that he “would set Massachusetts in a flame, though he should perish in the fire.” For what? Not because he wanted liberty, but because his father was not appointed to a vacant judgeship! It is alleged that John Adams was at a loss which side to take, and finally became a rebel because he was refused a commission in the peace! It is said that Joseph Warren was a broken-down man, and sought, amid the turmoil of civic strife, to better his condition. And the immortal Washington, it is related, and has never been successfully contradicted, was soured against the mother county because he was not retained in the British army in reward for his services in the French war. Again, Richard Henry was disappointed in not receiving the office of stamp distributor, which he solicited. Franklin was vexed because of opposition to his great land projects and plans of settlement on the Ohio. Indeed it is averred that mostly all the prominent whigs who sided with the rebels were young men, with nothing to lose and everything to gain by political changes and civil war. Thus it will be seen that the so-called American revolutionary heroes have not altogether clean hands, however much they may have been washed by their descendants. The clothing placed upon them may conceal the dirt and dross and blood, but they are indelibly there.

It is not alone the motives which constituted the mainsprings of the rebels’ action that we place in the balance, but their conduct towards those who differed from them. Individual instances of cruelty we shall have occasion to introduce; but it may here be said that it was the tories who acted as the conservators of peace against a mobocracy, and consequently were made to suffer great afflictions. It was because of this they were forced away to live and die as aliens to the land of their birth. The tories were Americans as well as the whigs; and when at last Great Britain ceased to try to coerce the colonies, and their independence was secured, then a nobler spirit should have obtained among the conquerors, and no one, because he had conscientiously been a conservative, should have been treated with opprobrium. It always becomes the victorious to be generous; and we, with all respect to many American friends, submit that, had patriotism alone actuated the revolutionary party, the American loyalists would have been invited to join with the whigs in erecting a mighty nation. Had freedom, indeed, been the watchword then, as it has flauntingly been since, it would have been conceded that the tory had a right to his opinion as well as the whig to his. Do the Americans descant upon the wisdom and far-seeing policy of those who signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the constitution of the Union? Monroe, we doubt not, had a different opinion when he begot the doctrine “America for the Americans.” Had the U. E. Loyalists been treated honorably; had they been allowed but their rights; had they not been driven away; then the name British American would forever have passed away; and instead of a belt of British provinces on their north, to constitute a ceaseless cause of misunderstanding with England, the star-spangled banner would, doubtless, long ago, have peacefully floated over all our land. Looking at the subject from this (an American) stand-point, we see that a shortsighted policy—​a vindictive feeling, a covetous desire for the property of the tories—​controlled the movements of the hour; and when the terms of peace were signed the birthright of the American tory was signed away, and he became forever an alien. But, as we shall see, he, in consequence, became the founder of a Province which, like a rock, has resisted, and ever will resist, the northward extension of the United States.

MOTIVES OF THE LOYALISTS.

Whatever may have been the incentives to rebellion, yielded to by those who revolted, there cannot rest upon the mind of the honest reader of unbiassed history a doubt as to the motives of the loyalists. The home-spun eulogists of the United States revolutionary soldiers have never ceased to dwell upon the principles which fired the breasts of the patriots, and nerved their arms to deeds of daring and successful warfare; all the time observing silence respecting the bravery of those who, from the same walks of life, engaged in the strife as the determined antagonists to rebellion. They have again and again charged upon the “king’s men” that it was because they were servants of the Crown and feeders at the government stall that loyalty was assumed and fought for. But facts, when allowed to stand out uncovered by the cant of liberatists, declare, in words that may not be gainsayed, that there were a vast number who held no appointment under the Crown, yet who, from first to last, were true—​naturally true—​to their king and country. The great mass were essentially conservatives, called “tories.” They held the opinion that to rebel was not only unnecessary but wrong. They believed that the evils of which the colonists had just reason to complain were not so great as to justify the extreme step taken by the signers of the Declaration of Independence; that any injustice existing was but temporary and would, when properly and calmly represented to the home government, be remedied; that to convulse the colonies in war was an unjustifiably harsh procedure; and, entertaining such a belief, it is submitted that they were noble indeed in standing up for peace—​for more moderate measures. Moreover, not unlikely, many were impressed with the view that the disaffected were laboring under an erroneous idea of oppression; that the training incident to pioneer life, the previous wars with the French Canadians, the constant contentions with the Indians, had begotten false views of their rights, and made them too quick to discover supposed wrongs. Candidly impressed with such thoughts, they could not be otherwise than true to the natural instincts of their heart, and refuse to take part, or acquiesce in throwing overboard the government of England, and so become aliens to the flag under which they were born and had lived, and for which they had fought. Not many may cast aside their feelings of nationality; not many can forget the land of their birth; not a large number will bury the associations of a life-time without the most potent causes. And, doubtless, the Anglo-American who faithfully adhered to the old flag possessed all the ardor of a lofty patriotism. But the American writer has forgotten all this. In the broad sunlight of national success he has not discovered the sacred longings of the U. E. Loyalists for the Union Jack. Looking at the events of ‘76 by the lurid glare of civil war, his eyes are blinded to the fact that a noble band, possessing equal rights with the rebels, loved England, notwithstanding all her faults, and for that love sacrificed their all of worldly goods. The citizens of the United States would prefer to have it said in history that the U. E. Loyalists, in every instance, voluntarily left their homes during the war, or at its close. The loyalists are thereby, no doubt, made to appear more devotedly attached to the British Crown. But it is right to have it distinctly stated that American writers mostly make themselves guilty of suppressio veri. The latest instance of this is seen in a report to the Hon. Hugh McCullough, Secretary of the Treasury, prepared by E. H. Derby, Commissioner of the Treasury Department, dated January 1st, 1866, who, in remarking upon the British Colonial policy from 1776 down to 1830, takes occasion to say that, “at first there was little fellowship between the United States and the Provincialists, many of whom were descended from the loyalists who followed the British troops from our shores.” The fact is, however, that many of them were driven away. The tories were not loyal without sense; and when the fortune of war had turned against them, they would, in great numbers, have made the best of their changed condition, and have lived to become true citizens of the new-born nation. But this was not to be. The loyalists were to be made feel that they were outcasts. It is the same ignoble and unstatesmanlike course which is now being pursued toward the subdued South. They must needs be made to know they are rebels. It is a shortsighted policy, even as the former was. The former led to the establishment of a nation to their north, which will stand, even after the Union lies in fragments; the latter fosters a feeling of alienation, which will speak upon the first opportunity, in the thunder tones of war.

If a comparison is instituted between the rebels of 1776, and those who were conservators of peace, the contrast is found to be very great. It is charged against the loyalists that all office-holders were tories; but is this more worthy of remark than the fact that many became rebels because they could not obtain office. Nay, the latter is infinitely more heinous in its nature. If we look at the two parties, with respect to education and, it may be added, religion, it is found that the great bulk of the educated and refined, the religious classes, especially the clergy, the leading lawyers, the most prominent medical men, were all loyalists. It was not because they were office-holders, it was because they possessed a moral and elevated mind, educated to a correct standard. Then, again, there was a large class of citizens who loved retirement, and who begged to be allowed to remain neutral, but who were actually compelled to take sides with the rebels or be driven away.