Loyalism came into being during the ten years that preceded the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and was not finally expelled from or absorbed into the new states until eight years after that event; but its origins are complex and go back for the better part of a century. They are to be found in the diverging types of character within the colonies themselves, and in incompatible political and religious ideals. Loyalism was no superficial movement, but was one of two deep currents which, when they met in full volume, made a troubled surface. This is not the place to discuss the effect of the Imperial policy of the eighteenth century, with its doctrine of mercantilism, nor of the natural consequence of such a policy in stimulating the independent trade of the colonial merchants; nor to enlarge upon the political theories that were engaging the earnest attention of the colonials. Long established differences in character were a powerful cause of estrangement. Unadulterated Englishmen though the Pilgrim Fathers and their successors who made New England were, their nearest of kin in England were not to be found among the governing classes of the eighteenth century. They had a natural antipathy to the Anglican clergy and to the English officials who gathered round the colonial governors, and as they moved into Pennsylvania and Virginia they diffused in these parts their dislikes or prejudices. Even Benjamin Franklin, a genial and

representative character and a distinctive American, was radically different from his contemporary, Dr Samuel Johnson, who, as the late Sir Walter Raleigh said, "has almost become a tutelary genius of the English people... a conformist by principle . . (who found it) good to be talked to by his Sovereign." He disliked Milton and was repelled by the Puritans of New England for their Whiggism. If Johnson and Franklin had got on well together it would have been because of their natural geniality. They were representatives of separating peoples.

But another not less potent cause in the creation of loyalism which led to disruption lay in the antagonism that had sprung up between the frontier and the prosperous towns on the Atlantic coast. Population had moved out of rugged New England into New York and Pennsylvania, and the frontier was becoming constantly more distant. On this borderland, as always, energetic people made their homes, whose comfort, in so far as it existed, depended upon their own hard work, and whose success bred not only self-confidence but hostility to the well-to-do in the older settlements. The farmer, the trader, the artizan, felt that he had many grievances against the rich merchant. It was, in one sense, the eternal antagonism between labour and capital, but more than that, it was the assertion of the frontier spirit against any kind of privilege. Conservatism is the natural product

of inherited wealth, and entrenched comfort is always timid lest radicalism disturb it; and in this period of colonial history the danger was not unreal, as there was a widespread movement among the common people of the new settlements to take the power of government into their own hands. It was only what might have been expected that the wealthier merchants and large land-owners of New York and Pennsylvania should sympathize more with the Home Government than with the pestilential orders that were dominating the colonial assemblies1. Further, these elements of discontent were reinforced by aggrieved immigrants into Pennsylvania, Virginia and the southern colonies from the north of Ireland and Scotland, few of whom, either at home or in America, had sympathy with the authorities in the English Church or State. Such leading Americans as became loyalist saw with concern a new order arising and the radical taking control, and they asked themselves whither this undisciplined folk would carry them. Unfortunate men that they were, they had their own troubles with the Mother-Country, and with governors and officials. The mercantile system, the unwise proceedings of England in the Admiralty Courts, the Molasses Act, the Stamp Act, the stupidity of governors and the arrogance of army officers galled them. But for them England was more than

I See J. T. Adams, Revolutionary New England, pp. 100 ff.

her over-bearing or bungling government: she was the fountain-head of their principles in Church and State. Their loyalty, moreover, was kept alive by their aversion to those who were leading the country into rebellion. They clung to the hope, true American patriots as they claimed to be, that the troubles would be settled without an appeal to arms, and they urged the Home authorities not to send out troops. But after Lexington the die was cast, the hope of a peaceful settlement was dissipated and the loyalists then took up the gage of battle and entered desperately

into a civil war. Hitherto there had been a moderate party, but when once the appeal was made to arms the moderate was suspected of being a concealed and therefore a treacherous enemy. Fear ministered fuel, and all loyalists were made to suffer grievously: confiscation of property, personal indignities, rough handling by the mob, tarring and feathering, even murders, make up the story of their woes.

There was, of course, reason for this fear, because the loyalist element was very large, especially in the states of New York and Pennsylvania. It has been estimated that in New York state, out of a population of 185,000 quite 90,000 were loyalist, and that twothirds of the property in the city and suburbs of New York belonged to the "Tories"; therefore the British never bombarded it. In 1777 Washington, almost in despair because of the disaffection of his

troops, wrote, “If America fall it will be by the death thrust of the loyalist rather than by the British."

After our experience of the Great War it is less difficult to understand the action of the American revolutionist. When hostilities are unloosed, neutrality must hide itself; the more desperate affairs become the more do human passions rage. The revolutionist had no difficulty in persuading himself that he was fighting for the ideal of basal human rights which he tried to express in the Declaration of Independence, and again and again he realized that because of the presence of the loyalists the issue was hanging in the balance. In his eyes they were both traitors and fools, and therefore he treated them with cruelty and scorn.

Though loyalists were found in all classes, their leaders came chiefly from the landed proprietors of New York and Pennsylvania and the rich merchants of the sea-board cities. The high officials and most of those who, whether propertied or as serving folk, had been taught in the Anglican prayer-book to reverence the King's Majesty remained loyal to the British cause. The old Puritan of New England and the Presbyterian Whig of Pennsylvania and Virginia made the backbone of the Revolution.

As the fortunes of the British waned emigration began. Many of the wealthiest fled to England, and others took refuge in New York as their last strong