United States or Uruguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But it was the passionate resentment of the revolutionists that perverted this exasperating difference into another 'intolerable wrong. Washington was above such meaner measures. But when he said the Loyalists were only fit for suicide, and when Adams, another future president, said they ought to be hanged, it is little wonder that lesser men thought the time had come for legal looting.
It was in connection with these grants that the name of "United Empire Loyalists" originated. An order-in-council was passed on the 9th of November, 1780, in accordance with the wish of Lord Dorchester "to put a mark of honour upon the families who had adhered to the unity of the empire and joined the royal standard in America before the treaty of separation in 1783."
This is what had happened: Forty loyalists, under command of Captain Evan Thomas, had embarked from New York on whaleboats manned by Lieutenant Blanchard, of the British navy, and eighty armed seamen. Landing at Coates' Point, a place near the mouth of Tom's River, they were there joined by a detachment of Monmouth County refugees under Richard Davenport.
Some were attached to the regular troops as scouts, while others were divided among the newly raised companies of loyalists. Peter Lambton had for the last four years been settled at Concord.
But, although we Loyalists were gagged and muzzled, though the Capitol was in the hands of the Whigs, and our vaunted levies of loyal recruits so many Falstaff's regiments for the most part, the faithful still kept intelligences with one another in the colony, and with our neighbours; and though we did not rise, and though we ran away, and though, in examination before committees, justices, and so forth, some of our frightened people gave themselves Republican airs, and vowed perdition to kings and nobles; yet we knew each other pretty well, and according as the chances were more or less favourable to us, the master more or less hard we concealed our colours, showed our colours, half showed our colours, or downright apostatised for the nonce, and cried, "Down with King George!"
Dublin Castle was soon besieged by a large miscellaneous force; the Archbishop, a leader of the loyalists, attempted to escape but was taken and foully murdered; bands of marauders ravaged the Pale.
Meanwhile, the Loyalists had made Riel's men prisoners, and when Riel attempted to interfere, Pierre Laveiller, a loyal French half-breed, put his loaded pistol to the Dictator's head, and threatened his life. Sixty or seventy of the Loyalists escorted Hardisty and his papers to Mr. Smith in Fort Garry.
There were a number of Loyalists in each of the Colonies; many, though not unfriendly to the American cause, had never entered cordially into the quarrel, and the heavy pressure of the war had begun to cool the zeal and exhaust the patience of some who had once been forward in their opposition to Britain.
It seemed to be a prevalent opinion that the country was peopled only by French farmers, a few French gentlemen, and some hundreds of discharged soldiers, with a few lawyers and landed proprietors, styled U.E. Loyalists, besides the few naval officers resident at Kingston, and the troops in the different garrisons.
But there was undoubtedly a widespread feeling that it would be a betrayal of the Loyalists of Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal, and even a positive breach of the Covenant, to accept exclusion from the Home Rule Act for only a portion of Ulster.
Word Of The Day