The Tories and the American Revolution

Question: In the years of the American Revolution the country was separated, the Patriots (Whigs) wanted to gain independence from Britain while the Loyalists (Tories) wished to remain loyal to England. What were the views of these Loyalists during the Revolution, and how were they treated for these views?

Document A

An excerpt from a loyalist pamphlet titled “Plain Truth” was written in response to the well known “Common Sense”. Written by James Chalmers in 1776.

This beautiful system (according to MONTESQUIEU) our constitution is a compound of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy. But it is often said, that the Sovereign, by honors and appointments, influences the Commons. The profound and elegant HUME agitating this question, thinks, to this circumstance, we are in part indebted for our supreme felicity; since without such control in the Crown, our Constitution would immediately degenerate into Democracy; a Government, which in the sequel, I hope to prove ineligible. Were I asked marks of the best government, and the purpose of political society, I would reply, the encrease, preservation, and prosperity of its members, in no quarter of the Globe, are those marks so certainly to be found, as in Great Britain, and her dependencies. After our Author has employed several pages, to break the mounds of society by debasing Monarchs: He says, “The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English Monarchy will not bear looking into.”

Document B

A letter from Polly Dibblee, a widow of a loyalist and a loyalist herself, to her Brother

Kingston, New Brunswick
November 17, 1787

Dear Billy....

O gracious God, that I should live to see such times under the protection of a British Government for whose sake we have done and suffered every thing but that of dying---

May you never experience such heart piercing troubles as I have and still labor under--you may depend on it that the sufferings of the poor Loyalists are beyond all possible description....The British rulers value loyal subjects less than the refuse of the Goals of England and America in former days--inhumane Treatment I suffered under the power of American mobs and rebels for that loyalty, which is now thought handsomely compensated for, by neglect and starvation--I dare not let my friends at Stamford know of my calamitous situation lest it should bring down the grey hairs of my mother to the grave; and besides they could not relieve me without distressing themselves should I apply--as they have been ruined by the rebels during the war--therefore I have no other ground to hope, but, on your goodness and bounty--....

Dear Billy
your affectionate sister,
Polly Dibblee

Document C

A loyalist song entitled “The Rebels” written by a Captain Smyth of the Queen’s rangers

Ye brave honest subjects who dare to be loyal,
And have stood the brunt of every trial,
Of hunting shirts and rifle guns;
Come listen awhile and I’ll tell you a song;
I’ll show you those Yankees are all in the wrong,
Who, with blustering look and most awkward gait,
‘Gainst their lawful sovereign dare for to prate,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.

The arch-rebels, barefooted tatterdemalions,
In baseness exceed all other rebellions,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns:
To rend the empire, the most infamous lies,
Their mock-patriot Congress, do always devise;
Independence, like the first rebels, they claim,
But their plots will be damned in the annals of fame,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.

Forgetting the mercies of Great Britain’s King,
Who saved their forefathers’ necks from the string,
With hunting shirts and rifle guns,
They renounce all allegiance and take up their arms,
Assemble together like hornets in swarms,
So dirty their backs, and so wretched their show,
That carrion-crow follows wherever they go,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.

With loud peels of laughter, your sides, sirs, would crack,
To see General Convict and Colonel Shoe-Black,
With their hunting shirts and rifle-guns.
See cobblers and quacks, rebel priests and the like,
Pettifoggers and barbers, with sword and with pike,
All strutting the standard of Satan beside,
And honest names using, their black deeds to hide,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.

This perjured banditti, now ruin this land,
And o’er its poor people claim lawless command,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.
Their pasteboard dollars prove a common curse,
They don’t chink like silver and gold in our purse,
With nothing their leaders have paid their debts off,
Their honor’s, dishonour, and justice they scoff,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.

For one lawful ruler, many tyrants we’ve got,
Who force young and old to their wars, to be shot,
With their hunting shirts and rifle guns.
Our good King, God speed him! never used men so,
We then could speak, act, and like freemen could go,
But committees enslave us, our liberty’s gone,
Our trade and church murdered; our country’s undone,
By hunting shirts and rifle guns.

Come take up your glasses, each true loyal heart,
Ane may every rebel meet his due desert,
With his hunting shirt and rifle gun.
May Congress, Conventions, those damned inquisitions,
Be fed with hot sulphur from Lucifer’s kitchens,
May commerce and peace again be restored,
And Americans own their true sovereign lord.
Then oblivion to shirts and rifle guns.
GOD SAVE THE KING!

Document D

A Diary entry on the 22cnd of September 1776, by Benjamin Martson, a loyalist, traveling under General Howe.

Document E

A 1775 article published by James Rivington in his newspaper the Rivington’s New York Gazetteer. This article was printed shortly before his plant was destroyed by patriots and he had to flee to England.

This afternoon at New York, As William Cunningham and John Hill were coming from the North River, they stopped near the liberty pole to see a boxing match, but had not stood long when Cunningham was struck at by Smith Richards, James Vandyke, and several others; called Tory; and used in a most cruel way manner by a mob of above two hundred men. Mr. Hill, coming to his assistance, was beaten and abused most barbarously, though neither of them gave the least offense, except being on the king’s side of the question at the meeting this morning.

The leaders of this mob brought Cunningham under the liberty pole, and told him to go down on his knees and damn his popish King George, and they would then set him free. But, on the contrary, he exclaimed, “God Bless King George!” They then dragged him through the green, tore the clothes off his back, robbed him of his watch. They also insisted on Hill’s damning the King, but he, refusing, was used in the same manner, and were it not for some peace officers, viz., Captain Welsh, John Taylor, William Dey, and Josepf Wilson, together with -------- Goldstream, who rescued them from the violence of this banditti and brought them to jail for the security of their persons from further injuries, they would inevitably have been murdered.

Document F

An excerpt from a pamphlet by Daniel Leonard, a pamphleteer of the period, was Written in 1775.

Do you expect to conquer in war? Was is no longer a simple, but an intricate science, not to be learned from books or two or three campaigns, but from long experience. You need not to be told that His Majesty’s generals, Gage and Halidmand, are possessed of every talent requisite to great commanders, matured long by experience in many parts of the world, and stand high in military fame; that many of the officers have been bred to arms from their infancy, and a large proportion of the army now here have already reaped immortal honors in the iron harvest of the field.

Alas! My friends. you have nothing to oppose to this force but a militia unused to service, impatient of command, and destitute of resources. Can you officers depend upon the privates, or the or the privates on the officers? Your war can be but little more than mere tumultuary rage. And besides, there is an awful disparity between troops that fight the battles of their sovereign and those that follow the standard of rebellion.