on private property, and on the persons of non-combatants, and the harsh and cruel councils of which they were too often the authors, appeared to the people at large to sanction every species of retaliation, and to place the tories beyond the pale of humanity.

This was merely the popular feeling. The governments of the United States, and of the individual states, with few exceptions, resisted these attempts, and sought to instil a spirit of moderation and forbearance, becoming the victorious party. In the progress of the conflict, and particularly in its earliest periods, attainder and confiscation had been resorted to generally, throughout the continent, as a means of war. But it is a fact important to the history of the revolting colonies, that the acts pre'scribing penalties, usually offered to the persons against whom they were directed the option of avoiding them, by acknowledging their allegiance to the existing govern

ments.

It was a preventive, not a vindictive policy. In the same humane spirit, as the contest approached its close, and the necessity of these severities diminished, many of the states passed laws offering pardons to those who had been disfranchised, and restoring them to the enjoyment of their property; with such restrictions only as were necessary for the protection of their own citizens. In others, different councils unfortunately prevailed. In NewJersey, meetings were held urging a non-compliance with the treaty, in consequence of the non-fulfilment by England of the seventh article, stipulating the return of the negroes and the restoration of the posts.

In Virginia,* the house of delegates resolved,† “That

Almon's Remembrancer, p. 92, v. 10, 2d part.

† December 17th, 1782.

confiscation laws, being founded on legal principles, were strongly dictated by that principle of common justice which demands that if virtuous citizens, in defence of their natural rights, risk their life, liberty, and property on their success; vicious citizens, who side with tyranny and oppression, or cloak themselves under the mask of neutrality, should at least hazard their property, and not enjoy the labours and dangers of those whose destruction they wished. And it was unanimously declared, that all demands and requests of the British court for the restitution of property confiscated by this state, being neither supported by law, equity, or policy, are wholly inadmissible; and that our delegates be instructed to move congress that they may direct their delegates, who shall represent these states in a general congress for adjusting a peace or truce, neither to agree to any such restitution, nor submit that the laws made by any independent state of this union, be subject to the adjudication of any power or powers on earth."

A proclamation was subsequently issued by its governor, enjoining all those who had adhered to the enemy since the nineteenth April, seventeen hundred and seventyfive, or had been expelled by an act of the legislature, or who had borne arms against the commonwealth, to leave the state. And an address from the county of Caroline was presented to the legislature, stating, "they see the impolicy, injustice, and oppression of paying British debts!"

In Massachusetts, a committee of the legislature of which Samuel Adams was chairman, reported that no person who had borne arms against the United States, or lent money to the enemy to carry on the war, should ever be permitted to return to the state.* Resolutions of an in

*Report on the files of the general court of Massachusetts, March 16th,

1784.

temperate character were also brought forward at public meetings in Maryland; and a bill containing many objectionable features was introduced in the popular branch of its legislature, but it was resisted with great eloquence, admirable sense, and unyielding firmness in the senate by two respected individuals, Charles Carroll and Robert Goldsborough, and was essentially modified.

In New-York, the division of public sentiment at the opening of the revolution being very great, each party viewed the other with the most jealous eyes, and felt more seriously the importance of individual exertions. The first act of hostility invited retaliation. Instead of looking to general results, the people of that state were driven to desperation by their continued uncertainty and alarm from dangers which menaced their double frontier.

The laws which were passed for their protection, for the apprehension of persons of "equivocal character," early in the warfare, were soon followed by the establishment of a board of commissioners of sequestration. An institution which, though at first confided to safe hands, was unavoidably entrusted with powers that naturally led to abuse, and ultimately became the organ of many harsh and oppressive proceedings.

Civil discord striking at the root of each social relation, furnished pretexts for the indulgence of malignant passions; and the public good, that oft-abused pretext, was interposed as a shield to cover offences which there were no laws to restrain.

The frequency of abuse, created a party interested both in its continuance and exemption from punishment, which at last became so strong, that it rendered the legislature of the state subservient to its views, and induced the enactment of laws attainting almost every individual whose connections subjected him to suspicion, who had

been quiescent, or whose possessions were large enough to promise a reward to this criminal cupidity.

It must not be supposed that these attempts were unresisted. On the contrary, those who were most efficient in their support of the revolution-those who had incurred the greatest losses-some of those to whom the contest had offered few other fruits than an uninterrupted sacrifice of feeling and property, and who might with much plausibility have thus reimbursed themselves-made a steady resistance to these arbitrary edicts; and when it was at last found to be unavailing, by appearing to unite in the measures of persecution, and by including in the number of the attainted the names of those whose proscription threatened to affect the personal interest of the most violent, showed them the danger of this game of intoler

ance.

These proceedings only exasperated the passions of the populace, and soon after the intelligence of peace, tumultuous meetings were convened under the thus disgraced name of "the sons of liberty," to denounce the tories, to menace them from returning to claim their estates, and to remonstrate with the legislature against measures that could affect titles by confiscation.

By the existing laws the annual election took place in the spring, but as the legislature was convened to meet in January, a proclamation was issued by the Governor, appointing a special election for the city of New York. At this election, held a few weeks after its evacuation, the members were chosen by a small part* of its excited population. They partook strongly of its feelings. The proscribed citizens petitioned for permission to return to their residences. This was a moment which magnanimity

* The highest vote was 249.

would have embraced to shield the defenceless, but Clinton, in his opening speech to the legislature, threw all the weight of his powerful influence into the popular scale. "While," he said, "we recollect the general progress of a war which has been marked with cruelty and rapinewhile we survey the ruins of this once flourishing city and its vicinity-while we sympathise in the calamities which have reduced so many of our virtuous fellow-citizens to want and distress, and are anxiously solicitous to repair the wastes and misfortunes we lament," we cannot listen to these petitions.

The action of the legislature was in conformity with this unfeeling declaration. A petition being presented, the leading friend * of the Governor in the assembly immediately moved that it be laid upon the table, and on an amendment to refer it, eight of the nine † members from the city voted against the reference. Two bills followed, both originating in the Senate. One was entitled, “An Act declaring a certain description of persons without the protection of the laws of this State, and for other purposes therein mentioned." On its being considered, a member of the Senate, a violent noted partisan of Clinton,‡ moved an amendment, prescribing a test oath, which, though opposed by Schuyler and five other senators, was incorporated in the Act. It disfranchised the loyalists for ever. The council of revision rejected this violent bill, on the grounds that "the voluntary remaining in a country overrun by the enemy," an act "perfectly innocent," was made penal, and was retrospective; "contrary to the received opinions of all civilized nations, and even the known principles of

*Colonel Lamb.

+ Colonel Rutgers was absent. Journal of Assembly, Feb. 4, 1784. Abraham Yates, jr.