The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 12

On the other hand, we find the English officers and soldiers, the actual prisoners of war, bear willing testimony to the kindness they received.

Thus speaks Lord Cornwallis in his letter to Sir Henry Clinton: 'The treatment in general that we have received from the enemy since our surrender has been perfectly good and proper. But the kindness and attention that has been shown us by the French officers in particular, their delicate sensibility of our situation, their generous and pressing offer of money, both public and private, to any amount, has really gone beyond what I can possibly describe, and will, I hope, make an impression on the breast of every English officer, whenever the fortune of war should put any of them into our power.'" (Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lxiv., pp. 181, 182.)

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE ACTS OF LEGISLATIVE BODIES FOR THE PUNISHMENT OF THE ADHERENTS TO THE CROWN WERE NUMEROUS.

"In _Rhode Island_, death and _confiscation_ of estate were the penalties by law for any person who communicated with _the Ministry_ or their agents, _or_ who afforded supplies to the forces, _or_ piloted the armed ships of the King. Besides these general statutes, several Acts were pa.s.sed in that State to confiscate and sequester the property of certain persons who were designated by name.

"In _Connecticut_, the offences of supplying the royal army or navy, of giving them information, of enlisting or procuring others to enlist in them, and of piloting or a.s.sisting naval vessels, were punished more mildly, and involved only the loss of estate and personal liberty for a term not exceeding three years. To _speak_ or _write_ or act against the doings of Congress or of the a.s.sembly of Connecticut, was punishable by _disqualification for office, imprisonment_, and the disarming of the offender. Here, too, was a law for seizing and confiscating the estates of those who sought royal protection, and absented themselves from their homes or the country.

"In _Ma.s.sachusetts_, a person _suspected_ of enmity to the Whig cause could be _arrested_ under a magistrate's warrant and banished, unless he would swear fealty to the friends of liberty; and the select men of towns could prefer charges of political treachery in town meetings, and the individual accused, if convicted by a jury, could be sent into the enemy's jurisdiction (banished). Ma.s.sachusetts also designated by name, and generally by occupation and residence, 380 of her people, of whom seventeen had been inhabitants of Maine, who had fled from their homes, and denounced against any one of them who should return, apprehension, imprisonment, and transportation to a place possessed by the British; and for a second voluntary return, without leave, _death_ without the benefit of clergy. By another law, the property of twenty-nine persons who were denominated 'notorious conspirators,' was confiscated--two had been governors, one lieutenant-governor, one treasurer, one attorney-general, one chief justice, and four commissioners of customs.

"_New Hampshire_ pa.s.sed Acts similar to these, under which seventy-six of her former citizens were prohibited from coming within her borders, and the estates of twenty-eight were declared to be forfeited.

"_Virginia_ pa.s.sed a resolution to the effect that persons of a given description should be deemed and treated as aliens, and that their property should be sold, and the proceeds go into the public treasury for future disposal; and also a law prohibiting the migration of certain persons to that commonwealth, and providing penalties for the violation of its provisions.

"In _New York_, the County Committees were authorized to apprehend and decide upon the guilt of such inhabitants as were _supposed_ to hold correspondence with the enemy, or had committed some other specified act; and they might punish those whom they adjudged to be guilty with imprisonment for three months, or banishment. There, too, persons opposed to liberty and independence were prohibited from practising law in the Courts; and the effects of fifty-nine persons, of whom three were women, and their rights of remainder and reversion, were to pa.s.s by confiscation from them to the people. So, also, a parent whose sons went off and adhered to the enemy was subjected to a tax of ninepence on the pound of the parents' estate for each and every such son; and until a revision of the law, Whigs were as liable to this tax as others.

"In _New Jersey_, one Act was pa.s.sed to punish traitors and disaffected persons; another, for taking charge of and leasing the real estates, and for forfeiting the personal estates of certain fugitives and offenders; and a third for forfeiting to, and vesting in the State, the real property of the persons designated in the second statute; and a fourth, supplemental to the Act first mentioned.

"In _Pennsylvania_, sixty-two persons, who were designated by name, were required by the Executive Council to surrender themselves to some Judge of a Court, or Justice of the Peace, within a specified time, and abide trial for _treason_, or in default of appearance to stand attainted; and by an Act of a subsequent time, the estates of thirty-six other persons, who were also designated by name, and who had been previously attainted of treason, were declared to be confiscated.

"The Act of _Delaware_ provided that the property, both real and personal, of certain persons who were named, and who were forty-six in number, should be forfeited to the State, 'subject, nevertheless, to the payment of the said offenders' just debts,' unless, as in Pennsylvania, they gave themselves up to trial for _the crime of treason in adhering to the royal cause_.

"_Maryland_ seized, confiscated, and appropriated all property of persons in allegiance to the British Crown, and appointed Commissioners to carry out the terms of three statutes which were pa.s.sed to effect these purposes.

"In _North Carolina_, the Confiscation Act embraced sixty-five specified individuals, and four mercantile firms, and by its terms not only included the 'lands' of these persons and commercial houses, but their 'negroes and other personal property.'

"The law of _Georgia_, which was enacted very near the close of the struggle, declared certain persons to have been guilty of treason against that State, and their estates to be forfeited for their offences."[112]

"_South Carolina_ surpa.s.sed all the other members of the confederacy, Ma.s.sachusetts excepted. The Loyalists of the State, whose rights, persons, and property were affected by legislation, were divided into four cla.s.ses. The persons who had offended the least, who were forty-five in number, were allowed to retain their estates, but were amerced twelve per cent. of their value. Soon after the fall of Charleston, and when disaffection to the Whig cause was so general, 210 persons, who styled themselves to be 'princ.i.p.al inhabitants' of the city, signed an address to Sir Henry Clinton, in which they state that they have every inducement to return to their allegiance, and ardently hope to be re-admitted to the character and condition of British subjects. These 'addressers' formed another cla.s.s. Of these 210, sixty-three were banished and lost their property by forfeiture, either for this offence or the graver one of affixing their names to a pet.i.tion to the royal general, to be armed on the royal side. Another cla.s.s, composed of the still larger number of eighty persons, were _also banished and divested of their estates_, for the crime of holding civil or military commissions under the Crown, after the conquest of South Carolina. And the same penalties were inflicted upon thirteen others, who, on the success of Lord Cornwallis at Camden, presented his lordship with congratulations. Still fourteen others were _banished and deprived of their estates_ because they were _obnoxious_. Thus, then, the 'addressers,' 'pet.i.tioners,' 'congratulators,' and 'obnoxious Loyalists,' who were proscribed, and who suffered the loss of their property (in South Carolina), were 170 in number; and if to these we add the forty-five who were fined twelve pounds in the hundred of the value of their estates, the aggregate will be 215.

"Much of the legislation of the several States appears to have proceeded from the recommendations made from time to time _by Congress_, and that body pa.s.sed several acts and resolutions of its own. Thus they subjected to _martial law_ and to _death_ all who should furnish provisions and certain other articles to the King's troops in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; and they resolved that all Loyalists taken in arms should be sent to the States to which they belonged, there to be _dealt with as traitors_" (not as prisoners of war, as were Americans taken in arms against the British).[113]

REMARKS ON THE CONFISCATION ACTS ABOVE CITED.

The Draconian Code or the Spanish Inquisition can hardly be said to exceed in severity and intolerance, the acts of the several State Legislatures and Committees above quoted, in which mere opinions are declared to be treason, as also the refusal to renounce a solemn oath of allegiance. The very place of residence, the non-presenting one's self to be tried as a traitor, the mere _suspicion_ of holding Loyalist opinions, involved the loss of liberty and property. Scores of persons were made criminals, not after trial by a verdict of a regularly empanelled jury, but by name, in acts or resolutions of Legislatures, and sometimes of Committees. No modern civilized country has presented such a spectacle of the wholesale disposal, by name, of the rights, liberties and properties, and even lives of citizens, by inquisition and various bodies, as was here presented against the Loyalists, guilty of no crime against their neighbours except holding to the opinions of their forefathers, and the former opinions of their present persecutors, who had usurped the power to rob, banish, and destroy them--who embodied in themselves, at one and the same time, the functions of law makers, law judges, and law executioners, and the receivers and disposers, or, as was the case, the possessors of the property which they confiscated against the Loyalists.

Is it surprising, then, that under such a system of oppression and robbery, Loyalists should be prompted to deeds of heroism, and sometimes of desperation and cruelty, to avenge themselves for the wrongs inflicted upon them, and to recover the liberties and properties of which they had thus been deprived, rendering themselves and their families homeless, and reducing them to poverty and distress? No one can justify many deeds of the Loyalists; but who could be surprised had they been more desperate than they were? And this the more so as they were, probably, superior in wealth and nearly equal in numbers to their oppressors, who had suddenly seized upon all military sources of power, disarmed the Loyalists, and erected tribunals for their ruin.[114]

American writers often speak of the havoc committed by the "Tories," but the acts of Legislatures and Committees above quoted furnish ample causes and provocation for retaliation, and the most desperate enterprises and efforts to recover lawful rights and hard-earned property. Where these Confiscating Acts had been most sweeping and severe, as in the case of South Carolina, and the two parties nearly equal, this internecine war against life and property was the most relentless.[115]

It is as easy as it is unfair for American writers to narrate and magnify the murderous acts of the "Tories," and omit those perpetrated by the "Whigs," as well as the cruel laws against the liberties, property, and lives of the "Tories," which gave rise to these barbarous acts.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 102: "Committees exercised legislative, executive, and judicial powers. It is not to be doubted that, in many instances, these were improperly used, and that private resentments were often covered under the specious veil of patriotism. The sufferers, in pa.s.sing over to the Royalists, carried with them a keen remembrance of the vengeance of Committees, and when opportunity presented were tempted to retaliate."

(Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xxvi., pp.

467, 468.)]

[Footnote 103: "Until the Declaration of Independence they were by far the largest party, who not only expected but prayed for a reconciliation. England was their home, and by that affectionate name was always spoken of; all the wrongs which were heaped upon the children could not make them forget their home, or entirely alienate them from their parent. The ligaments that connect nations are never less powerful, though less tender, than those which unite individuals, families, and clans. Consanguinity, affinity, alliance, operate alike on each." (Allen's History of the American War.)

"The disaffected, or rather the Loyalists, were a formidable party in the Middle States. They might be forgiven--many of them acted from principle, from a conscientious regard to their duty, from affection to their 'Sovereign,' and however mistaken they may have been, they deserve no censure. It is the infirmity of men's nature to err, and the majority cannot complain if the minority insist on the same privilege for which the predominant party are contending--the liberty of judging for themselves."--_Ib._, Vol. I., p. 483.]

[Footnote 104: Even in South Carolina. Mr. Hildreth remarks:

"Not, however, by armies alone were hostilities carried on. All the scattered settlements bristled in hostile array. Whigs and Tories pursued each other with little less than savage fury. Small parties, everywhere under arms, some on one side, some on the other, with very little reference to greater operations, were desperately bent on plunder and blood." (Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. III., Chap.

xli., p. 329.)]

[Footnote 105: Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. III., Chap, x.x.xiii., pp. 137, 138.]

[Footnote 106: Having thus recovered their capital (Boston), one of the first acts of government exercised by the Provincial a.s.sembly was to order the effects and the estates of those who fled with the British troops to Halifax to be publicly disposed of, and their produce applied to the use of the State. Such adherents to Britain as had risked to remain behind, were treated with great severity. They were prosecuted as enemies and betrayers of their country, and their estates were confiscated accordingly. (Dr. Andrews' History of the Late War, Vol.

II., Chap. xix., p. 159.)]

[Footnote 107: Lord Mahon's History, etc., Vol. VI., Chap. liii., pp.

127, 128.

"The American Loyalists, in arms on the side of England, had grievous cause throughout the war to complain of the merciless treatment of such among them as fell into their countrymen's hands."--_Ib._, Vol. VII., Chap. lxvi., p. 250.

"The Legislature of North Carolina pa.s.sed a law (1780) to put a stop to the robbery of poor people under the pretence that they were Tories--a practice carried on even to the plundering of their clothes and household furniture." (Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol.

III., Chap. xli., p. 329.)

"In New York, in 1776, a rage for plundering, under pretence of taking Tory property, infected many of the common soldiery, and even some of the officers." (Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xi., p. 154.)]

[Footnote 108: Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xi.]

[Footnote 109: Dr. Andrews' History of the Late War, Vol. II., Chap.

xxvi., pp. 370, 371.]

[Footnote 110: In connection with these transactions, we have an ill.u.s.tration of the uniform and generous treatment of Loyalists by General Washington, although he once gave expression to ill-feeling towards them at Boston in the spring of 1775; for says Lord Mahon:

"Cornwallis, on his part, was honourably anxious to protect from harm the native Loyalists within his lines; and he proposed, as the tenth Article, that no such men were to be punished on account of having joined the British army. Washington wrote in reply: 'This cannot be a.s.sented to, being altogether of civil resort.' Means were found, however, with Washington's connivance, to obtain the same object in another form. It was stipulated that, immediately after the capitulation, the _Bonetta_ sloop-of-war was to sail for New York, unsearched, with despatches from Lord Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, and with as many soldiers on board as he should think fit to send; provided only that the vessel was returned, and that the soldiers were accounted for as prisoners in a future exchange. By this expedient was the British chief enabled to secure a safe conduct for his American adherents." (Lord Mahon's History, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lxiv., p.

179.)]

[Footnote 111: "The abbe was struck at seeing, from several indications, how much keener was at that time the animosity between the English and Americans than between the English and French. Thus the English officers, when they laid down their arms and were pa.s.sing along the enemy's lines, courteously saluted every French officer, even of the 'lowest rank,' a compliment which they withheld from every American man of the highest." (Voyage en Amerique, par l'Abbe Robin, p. 141, ed.

1782; quoted in Lord Mahon's History, Vol. VI., Chap. lxiv., p. 181.)]

[Footnote 112: _Note_ by the Author.--The above statement of the confiscating law of Georgia gives a very inadequate idea of that law.

Savannah was taken, and General Lincoln and his army were driven out of Georgia by Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, in 1778, who treated all cla.s.ses with such kindness and generosity that the Legislature and Government, as previously existed, was restored and remained until 1782, when Savannah was evacuated by the British. Just at the juncture of Colonel Campbell's conquest of Georgia, the Legislature of that State was pa.s.sing a Confiscation Act against "Tories" and preparing to carry it into effect. During the latter part of the nearly four years of British occupation, the Congress party elected a Governor and organized their Legislature, meeting at Augusta. Two months before the evacuation of Savannah by the British, the Legislature of the Congress party pa.s.sed the Confiscation Act referred to in the text. We find a copy of this act in a pamphlet published in London in 1783, ent.i.tled _The Particular Case of the Georgia Loyalists_. This Act may serve as a specimen of Confiscation Acts pa.s.sed in other States. We give it entire, remarking that it curiously a.s.sumes in the preamble that there had been no break in the Government of the State from 1778 to 1782, though the English had ruled the State during the whole of that period. The Act is as follows:

"Whereas on the 1st day of March, which was in the year of our Lord 1778, an Act was pa.s.sed for attainting certain persons therein mentioned of treason, and confiscating their estates for the use and benefit of this State, which said Act has not yet been carried into full execution: And whereas it is necessary that the names of the said persons so attainted by the same law should be inserted in a law, with the names of various other persons who have since the aforesaid time been guilty of treason against this State, and the authority of the same, by traitorously adhering to the King of Great Britain, and by aiding, a.s.sisting, abetting, and comforting the generals and other officers, civil and military, of the said King, to enforce his authority in and over this State, and the good people of the same: And whereas the _aforesaid treason_, and other atrocious crimes, justly merit forfeiture of protection and property:

"Be it enacted, by the representatives and freemen of the State of Georgia in General a.s.sembly met, and by the authority of the same, that all and each of the following persons, viz. (here follow the names of 286 persons, late inhabitants of Georgia), be and they are hereby declared to be banished from this State for ever; and if any of the aforesaid shall remain in this State sixty days after the pa.s.sing of this Act, or shall return to this State, the Governor or Commander-in-Chief for the time being is hereby authorised and required to cause such persons so remaining in or _returning_ to this State to be apprehended and committed to jail, there to remain without bail or mainprize, until a convenient opportunity shall offer for transporting the said persons beyond the seas to some part of the British King's dominions, which the Governor or Commander-in-Chief for the time being is hereby required to do; and if any of the said persons shall return to this State after such transportation, then and in such case he or they shall be adjudged and hereby declared to _be guilty of felony_, and shall, on conviction of their having so returned as aforesaid, _suffer death_ without the benefit of clergy.

"And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that all and singular the estates, real and personal, of each and every one of the aforesaid persons, which they held, possessed or were ent.i.tled to, in law or equity, on the 19th of April, 1775, or which they have held since, or do hold in possession, or others hold in trust for them, or to which they are or may be ent.i.tled in law or equity, or which they may have, hold, or be possessed of, in right of others, together with all debts, dues, and demands that are or may be owing to the aforesaid persons, or either of them, _be confiscated to and for the use and benefit of this State_; and the monies arising from the sales which take place by virtue of and in pursuance of this Act, to be applied to such uses and purposes as the Legislature shall hereafter direct.