IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // .A 1.0 ^KS I I.I 1.25 iua 112 s m EBj i lU u ■ 40 2.2 2.0 m U il.6 ^^ Va ^7). '/ A ^V^ V ri7 ,. ... CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICIVIH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 1980 Technical Notes / Notes techniques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Physical features of this copy which may alter any of the images in the reproduction are checked below. Coloured covers/ Couvertures de couleur Coloured maps/ Cartes g^ographiques en couleur L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a M possible de se procurer. Certains d^fauts susceptibles de nuire A la quality de la reproduction sont notte ci-dessous. D D Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Coloured plates/ Planches en couleur D D Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages ddcolor^es, tachetdes ou piqu6es Tight binding (may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin)/ Reliure serr6 (peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge int^rieure) m D Show through/ Transparence Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes D Additional comments/ Commentaires suppldmentaires Bibliographic Notes / Notes bibliographiques D D Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Bound with other material/ Reli6 avec d'autres documents D D Pagination incorrect/ Erreurs de pagination Pages missing/ Des pages manquent D Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque D Maps missing/ Des cartes gdographiques manquent D Plates missing/ Des planches manquent D Additional comments/ Commentaires supplAmentaires The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in Iteeping with the filming contract specifications. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — ► (meaning CONTINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la netteti de I'exemplaire fiimt, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Un des symboles suivants apparaTtra sur la der- nlAre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: ie symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifie "FIN". The original copy was borrowed from, and filmed with, the kind consent of the following institution: National Library of Canada L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grflce A la g6n6rosit6 de l'6tablissement prAteur suivant : Bibliothdque nationale du Canada Maps or plates too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper lAft hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes ou les planches trop grandes pour dtre reproduites en un seul clichd sont film^es i partir de Tangle sup6rieure gauche, de gauche d droite et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Le diagramme suivant illustre la m6thode : 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 " H 1 ^ f Jubilee EomoN | 9 9f^ i J History and Historicttcs 1 I t I United Empire Loyalists | . . BY . . 5 EDWARD HARRIS I I ■■■"""■"■ ■ TOBONTO GLOBE.—** Intensely interesting and amusing." TORONTO MAIL AND EMPIRE.— **Oi fascinating interest.' TORONTO WORLD.-** Of exceeding interest." I Price, - 10 Cents. I t - I TORONTO: WILI^TAM BRIGGS 1897 I ADDRESS DELIVERED BY MR. EDWARD HARRIS At the Meetiif;/ of the United Empire Loyal iitx' AxHOciation of Ontario, February lllh, 1897, at the Canadian Institute, Toronto. After the lapse of a century, American historians, Tardy Juttice. descended from men who fought for the Revolution, having access to papers and the secret correspondence of the time, are writing disinterestedly, and with historical accuracy, towards those Americans who thought and fought against the Revolution. The subject has become one of interest to the American student. In lighter literature, also, we now have from time to time a full display, in portraiture as well as text, of colonial dames, daughters of the Revolution, and American patriot families. On the Loyalist side, our ancestors have left it as a legacy to their grandchildren to wonder what manner of men and women they were to survive the horrors of banishment ; driven to desperation, impoverished, and escaping with their lives to a wilderness. The Huguenots and French emigres had civilized coun- tries to escape to, and follow various handicrafts and intellectual occupations. The Moors were well treated 2 Sir Charles Russell. Vindictive Spoliation. \ • Every Third American a Loyalist. when banished from Spain, and Spaniards had equi- table treatment when the Dutch obtained freedom. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was civil death to all Huguenots. The Americans made the treaty of peace of 1783 worse than civil death to all Loyalists. Sir Charles Russell, in a recent address delivered in the States, referring to true civilization, said : " The true signs are thoughts for the poor and suffering ; chivalrous regard and respect for women ; the frank recognition of human brotherhood ; the narrowing of the domain of mere force as a governing factor in the world ; the love of ordered freedom ; the abhorrence of what is mean and cruel and vile ; ceaseless devo- tion to the claims of justice." The Americans, at the inception and birth of their Republic, violated every precept of Christianity and of a boasted civilization, even to confiscating the valu- able estates of many helpless women. For all time it is to be a part of American history, that the last decade of the eighteenth century saw the most cruel and vindictive act of spoliation recorded in modern history. The Acadians have been immortalized in verse, but were there no " Evangelines " among the Loyalists ? Yea ! and many of them. It is admitted now, that the American Revolution was the work of an energetic minority, who succeeded in committing an undecided and fluctuating majority to courses for which they had little love, and leading them step by step to a position from which it was impossible to recede. Every third American was a Loyalist, and continued so through every form of abuse and disaster. In the " Act of Banishment " passed by Massachusetts in September, 1778, against the most prominent Loyalist leaders of the State, one may now read the names of 310 of her citizens — that list of names reads like the bead-roll of the noblest and oldest families concerned in founding and up- ^^■IJf -"»f ,l^« ^1 , 3 building New England civilization, more than sixty being graduates of Harvard. The character now given to our ancestors, the fhl,*Loy«H»u' Loyalists, by the best and most recent American writers, is that " they differed from their contempor- aries of equal virtue, sincerity, and intelligence on the patriot side in that single quality of loyalty. Almost without an exception they felt ind were ready to censure, and even to resist, the oppressive measures of the Mother Country. They believed that calm but earnest remonstrance would right all wrongs. They loved their Mother Country ; were proud of their rela- tion to it ; felt secure under its protection, and their attachment gave assurance of their confidence in its just intents. They could not persuade themselves that the Colonies could possibly triumph in a conflict with her. Their loyalty expressed their dread of anarchy, and their reverence for constitutional order." During the contest, as opportunities occurred, these confitcation. Loyalists were crippled and impoverished. The favorite plan for raising money was by confiscation of their property, and this was resorted to by every State. At the Treaty of Peace, 1783, their banishment and ^^^^"v^ extermination was a foregone conclusion. The bit- terest words ever known to have been uttered by Washington were in reference to them. " He could see nothing better for them than to recommend suicide." Sir Guy Carleton wrote in 1783 to the Minister at Philadelphia to explain the delay in evacuating New York : " The violence in the Americans, which broke out carieton'* soon after the cessation of hostilities, increased the *""*" ^' number to look to me for escape from sudden destruc- tion, but these terrors have of late been so consider- ably augmented that almost all within these lines conceive the safety of both their property and their on'a ord*. ^T- 4 John Adams' Inhumanity. Dr. Franklin's Deceitfulness. lives depends upon being removed by me, which ren- ders it impossible to say when the evacuation of New York will be completed. Whether they have Just grounds to assert that there is either no government for common protection, or that it secretly favors these proceedings, I shall not pretend to determine ; but, as the daily gazettes and publications furnish repeated proofs, not only of disregard of the articles of peace, but as barbarous menaces come from committees formed in various towns, cities and districts, and even at Philadelphia, the very place which Congi-ess has chosen for their residence, I should show an indiffer- ence to the feelings of humanity, as well as to the honor and the interests of the nation whom I serve, to leave any of the Loyalists who are desirous to quit the country, a prey to the violence they conceive they have so much cause to apprehend." Neither Congress nor any State made any recom- mendation that humane treatment should be meted out to Loyalists. John Adams had written from Amsterdam that he would have hanged his own brother had he taken part against him. There are many excuses given by American writers for these acts of atrocity at the close of the war. " There was exhaustion under a burden of debts and a worthless currency." " In sheer bewilderment and desperation the people in many places were in a state of anarchy, breaking into acts of rebellion." "That to intrude upon a people thus burdened the claims of those who had been the allies of the British was simply prepos- terous." Dr. Franklin, in his private correspondence, written while peace negotiations were in progress, made no disguise that he " thought it wise to keep out of the country those hated British sympathizers who, if scattered over it, might be mischievous in their influ- ence." The mob were allowed to cointnit any outrage or Mob Rui«. atrocity, while the authorities in each State remained apparently indifferent. A sample of Loyalist ill- treatment, showing that barbarity ruled, as well as confiscation and banishment, is to be fountl in a letter written October 22nd, 1783, to a Boston friend, and preserved in New York City Manual, 1870. " The British are leaving New York every day, and JJdgJ L^nch. last week there came one of the d — d refugees from New York to a place called Wall Kill, in order to make a tarry with his parents, where he was taken into custody immediately. His head and eyebrows were shaved, tarred and feathered ; a hog yoke put on his neck, and a cowbell thereon — upon his head a very high hat and feathers were set, well plumed with tar, and a sheet of paper in front, with a man drawn with two faces, representing the traitor Arnold and the devil." The indiflference shown to treaty obligations by HavV Be?rl'* Congress and the States, and the secret determination to eradicate everything British from the country, is now known to have been the deliberate, well-consid- ered policy of the founders of the Republic. This timidity, or even call it policy, has continued to the present time. It is within easy imagination to believe that those magnificent States, extending from Maine to Florida, would have depopulated the British Isles had it not been for the Revolution, and the hatred of England which survived it. The world had never ofliered any such attraction or outlet for immigration. It ceased to come. The old homes and estates of the successful rebels, as well as those of the banished Tories, crumbled to decay. Life was diverted to the cities, and rural life became a monotonous routine. There are a succession of incidents bearing upon this point, but time permits a reference to two or three only. In 1812, when America declared war, Napoleon w«r of 1812. -np^rr- 6 was at the height of his power, with an army ready for the invasion of England at Boulogne. England was exhausted in the contest with him. Her great War Minister, Pitt, had died broken-hearted. The indications were reasonably favorable to a permanent occupation of the Canadas by the States, and the extinction of all British interests on this continent. Taii-twitting. In 1837, and during the Fenian raids of 1866, the American frontier was openly allowed to be made a base of operations against Canada. In 1842 the Maine boundary question disclosed so hostile a feeling against Great Britain that Congress would not accept a boundary obtained by frauds until Daniel Webster, the American Commissioner, produced maps and sur- veys which had been suppressed, which, had they been disclosed to the British Commissioner, would have given to Canada one-third of the State of (Maine. The settlement of the Oregon boundary question showed America's hatred of England to be chronic. When Confederation of the Canadian Provinces took place, it was placed on record in the House of Repre- sentatives that it was disapproved and regarded as a menace by the United States. The Venezuela mes- sage was issued at a time when England was believed to be isolated and without an ally. It showed that war could be declared against Great Britain at any time in ten minutes, upon any pretext ; while an arbi- tration treaty to secure peace between the two nations takes protracted consideration. This is the result of one hundred and twenty years of schooling of the Detettation of nativc-bom and the emigrant into a detestation of everything British. The anti-English feeling in the States after the Revolution had unexpected results. Although there were many men of education and refinement among the successful patriots, the more cultured and conser- court"****" * native classes had been banished. Washington com- menced his presidency with a Court having the exclusiveness and codes of precedence adopte,'^-fi«rj. 'j^^.^*' VT^I '■':'?, ?:r-t* " 11 I Again, after washing in the morning, when I took I some money which had lain all night on my table, I at first fancied that it had become siicky until I dis- covered that the sensation was caused by its freezing to my fingers. " I one day inquired of a fine, ruddy, honest-looking Brittle toes, man, who called upon me, and whose toes and instep on each foot had been amputated, how the accident happened. He told me that walking one cold day, without feeling the slightest pain, first one toe, then another, broke off, as if they had been bits of brittle sticks." At the date these books were written, and by people advance-guard who had every comfort money and public position '^^^l^^ wilder- could give, the Loyalist families had been the advance guard in the wilderness, building up the country, and had suflfered hardships for fifty years. Their sufferings and privations are as yet an untrodden field for the historian, the novelist, and the poet. Long before another fifty years what was called patriotism in the last century may have run its course, and to have the blood of the banished Loyalists in one's veins may be the greater boast on this continent. Already in the older states men of light and leading are asking themselves, " What Washington and his Ring were at," in separating from the only stable government in the world. My grandfather escaped with his family to New Brunswick in 1783. In 1794, at the suggestion of ^ General Simcoe, he became the first settler in the t Long Point country, on the Lake Erie shore. He was an educated and successful business man of New 1 Jersey. His wife was a colonial dame, or what we now call a " society woman." The banished Loyalists were, with few exceptions, educated and refined people. They were the successful representatives of trade, commerce, agriculture and professions, and the various occupations in the old colonies. 12 The usual log-house was built by my grandfather in 1794, and in it one hundred years ago my dear mother was born. It is from her that I get many of those early reminiscences, some of which I shall relate. Buckskin Slips, jjj ^\^q abscncc of all othcr clothing and supplies, the less fortunate settlers, and, as a rule, all the men used the skins of animals. The girls in milder weather usually wore a buckskin slip. " White goods" were not known in those days. Miss Sprague, a fine girl of fourteen or fifteen years, had been in my mother's kitchen with her parents, and noticed '^i . washing going on in the usual way, by boiling in |- soap and water. A few days after Polly Sprague took advantage of her father's and mother's absence to wash her only garment, the buckskin slip. This she did by boiling it. We all know the action of heat on leather, and Polly had to retreat into the potato hole under the floor. When her parents returned they soon found the shrunken slip, and then the girl. She was brought down to my mothers in a barrel, on an ox-team, four miles, and temporarily clothed until more buckskin could be found. This Miss Sprague's granddaughter is now Lady B , in England. From my mother's many tales I should say there were amusing incidents daily. Another young lady, according to custom in those dayn, was prayed for in the congregation, "as having joined the Church and given up all her worldly and frivolous ways, and had given all her trinkets, gewgaws, and finery to her younger sister." Those were days when on no pre- tence whatever was any adornment or apparel of any kind permitted to leave the family. It is quite easy to understand the introduction of the crazy quilt. Prompt Marriages in those early days were peculiar. Courtships were short. My father and mother were visited one morning about 1825 by Mr. McDonald, of Marriages. 13 Goderich, the young surveyor for the Canada Com- pany, and afterwards Sheriff for the Huron District. He had ridden through the forest from Goderich to Long Point Bay, having heard that Judge Mitchell had two fine daughters, and desired my father's and mother's opinion as to which one they would recom- mend him to marry. The elder was recommended, and they all went to the Judge's house, a few miles off. The eldest daughter was interviewed, and the next morning she left for Goderich married, travelling 150 miles on horseback, on a pillion behind her hus- band. No one but a surveyor, and in the employ of the Canada Company, could have accomplished that feat in those days. My father and mother were married by a magis- Dissenters, trate, there being no clergyman within sixty miles. Dissenting clergymen, especially Methodists and Bap- tists, not being allowed to solemnize marriage, was the cause of much irritation. About 1818 a regular built, well-educated Epis- First Rector, copal rector located in the Long Point settlement. A country couple came down on an ox-team from * about twelve miles north, through a bush road, to the rectory to be married. The rector wanted them to go on one mile farther to the church. That was his rule. As the couple had a long return jour- ney to make through the forest, the man remonstrated. The rectory — it is there yet — consisted of a house 16 x 18, with one room on ground floor, with a ladder outside to go to the one bedroom above. This lower room the rector's wife had carpeted with a carpet made with her own hands. Wedding parties in those days were mud from head to foot. The man became very abusive when the rector's wife suggested that that they be married in the barn. The girl stepped ,v*^ forward and checked him and said, "No, John, no;Q,j we will be married in the stable. If our Saviour p™"***"*'- 14 could be bom in a stable, I gueSs I can be married in one." And so they were. In those days a settler could not exist without a wife, and suitable girls were indexed by industrious young settlers, as American heiresses are now by the impoverished nobility of Europe. When marriage licenses were first introduced, and took the place of calling in church, many absurd things happened. My father was the first issuer. A man came to him one day from about forty miles off,, and asked him if that license he got was all right. My father asked him when he got it. He said, " Oh, about seven or eight months ago." (In case of a change of Governor, who signed these documents in blank, it was usual to send old forms back and get a new lot.) As no change had taken place, my father said, " Of course it was all right. Who said it wasn't ? " " Well," the man said, " some of the women neighbors have been telling my wife that there should have been some ceremony performed." My father said, " Do I understand that you did not go to a clergyman and be married ? " " No," he said, " we went right straight home." " Well," my father said, " you had better hurry off as soon as you can, and go to a clergyman and have the ceremony per- formed." The man was rather indignant, and said my father should have told him. I have no doubt- there are many similar instances, and some of them never rectified. The post-office supplies some stories showing the way even official business ran itself in those days. The post-office in the village of V , in the Long Point country, is one of the oldest post-offices in Ontario. Some years ago the post-office inspector received an official letter that it was an extraordinary circumstance that no return of dead letters had ever been received from that post-office, and he was ordered 15 to make an immedilte personal inspection. As the postmaster was the oldest inhabitant, most respectable, and had been in office more than fifty years, the in- spector wrote him a polite note, asking explanation. By return mail he received a reply : " That he was glad the department had taken notice of this at last ; that he had two or three rooms, .now, nearly filled with these old letters." A sheriff had a narrow escape in those early days Negnl"*^ from his "perfectly reasonable" way of doing busi- ness. A negro had been sentenced to be hanged. The sheriflfwas a sportsman in the duck-shooting line, and was always in demand. A party of his friends came for a shoot from a distance a few days before the hanging. The sheriff's sporting instincts were too much for him. He went to the negro, and asked him if he would mind being hanged on Tuesday instead of Thursday. The negro said, " Well, Sheriff, you have been so kind to me in de gaol dat I don't want to spoil your sport. You can hang me on Tuesday , but do it early in de morning ; juss as I wake up." He was hanged accordingly on that morning. The incident soon reached the authorities, and it was unpleasant for the sheriff for some time, but his friends saved him. There was a very neighborly feeling, and a good deal of give and take in those days. The first religious instruction received by the young in the first settlements was from the Methodist, Bap- tist, and Presbyterian circuit riders, and they did admirable work in the early days. All denominations attended the camp-meetings (there were no churches), and the settlers met there once a year. A Methodist divine, who subsequently became Long Prayers, eminent throughout Canada, began his ministry as a circuit rider in the Long Point settlement. Riding through the bush towards the close of day he came to a shanty with a light in the window, and latch string 16 hanging out. He tethered his horse under a tree, and went in. There were fifteen or twenty men, all new settlers, who, after working on their various locations during the day, sought shelter there in the evening. No class in those days had any distinctive dress. The divine asked if he could shelter there for the night. They said : " Certainly, there is always room for another." After a few remarks, he sat down and took a Bible out of his pocket, and said it was always his custom to read a chapter before lying down for the night. While reading his chapter, as the expression now is, he " took stock " of the surroundings, and made up his mind it was a proper field for his ministry. He then said he would like to say a prayer, and if they had no objections, he would pray aloud. They isaid they would be very glad to hear a prayer. Some of them said they had not heard a prayer for five or six years. This was the minister's opportunity. They were experts in prayer in those days, and if there was any wickedness in you they would surely find it out. He prayed for about half an hour, and no doubt made every man feel himself a sinner, with a de- sire to do better. One man, however, got up and put on his hat and boots, about to leave the room. The minis- ter said to him : " My good man, I thought there would be room for us all ; I hope you are not leaving on my account?" "Well," said the man, "that's not it; I have been listening to your prayer, and I have made up my mind that I'll not sleep all night in the same room with any man who has asked forgiveness for as many sins as you 'ave acknowledged you 'ave committed." It is said that the minister systemati- cally shortened his prayers after that. -Reiigio That our ancestors carried with them into the wilderness that religious feeling which leads to sub- mission under calamity is part of the history of the Loyalists. Among my grandfather's books was a HMedici ligii (flc "- "'^™ "'^ " ~J7?'^r7»~^Ti^"'"* Wyt^iT^'^y^r T'.f^'^*' 17 copy of the " Religio Medici," of Sir Thomas Browne^ What I now read was a marked passage : " If thy Vessel be small in the Ocean of the World, if Mean- ness of Possessions be thy allotment on Earth, forget not those Virtues which the great Disposer of all bids thee to entertain from thy Quality and Condition ; that is, Submission, Humility, Content of mind, and Industry. Content may dwell in all Stations. To be low, but above contempt, may be high enough to be Happy. But many of low Degree may be higher than computed, and some Cubits above common Com mensuration ; for in all States Virtue gives Qualifications and Allowances which make out defects^ Rough Diamonds are sometimes mistaken for Pebbles, and Meanness may be Rich in Accomplishments which Riches in vain desire. The Divine Eye looks upon high and low differently from that of Man. They who seem to stand upon Olympus and high mounted unto our eyes may be but in the Valleys and low Ground unto His ; for He looks upon those as highest who nearest approach His Divinity, and those as. lowest who are farthest from it." NOTE. The term " U. E. Loyalist " owes its origin to an Order-in -Council of the Imperial Parliament, of November 9th, 1789, which provided that " all loyalists who had joined the cause of Great Britain before the Treaty of Separation of 1783, together with their children of both sexes, have the distinction of using the letters 'U. E.' after their names, thus preserving the memory of their devotion to ' an United Empire.'" This distinction is reverently cherished by thousands of Canadians of the present day. In "Ryerson's Loyalists," vol. ii., pages 130-136, are the following remarks (m the confiscation acts of the states, Rhode Island, Connect- icut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia : "The Draconian Code or the Spanish Inquisition can hardly be- r ^TJ*^'y?y% ^''^ 18 said to exceed in severity and intolerance the actH of the States' Legiula- tures 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 jiersons were mad^ criminals, not after jury trial, but by name, in acts or resolutions of legislatures, and sometimes of committees. No modem civilized country has presented such a spectacle of the wholesale dis- I>osal by name of the rights, liberties and properties, and even lives of citizens, by inquisition and bigoted bodies, as were here presented against the Loyalists, guilty of no crime against their neighbors 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 projierty which they confiscated against the Loyalists." tT Cbc Iflnitcb lempirc Xoi?aU0t0' Haaociation OF ONTARIO. Fdrm of Application for Election of IMembers, to be filled In and returned to "The Secretary, U. E. Loyalists' Association, Toronto." Name of Candidate^ Mr, Mrs. Miss Address - Proposed by - Seconded by. Name of Candidate's U. E. L. ancestor State how Candidate is related to said U. E. L. ancestor Date of arrival in Canada of U. E. L. ancestor, and where settled. It is Essential FOR MEMBCRBHIP TO aC DCSCCNDCO ON THE MALE OR FEMALE SIDE FROM A U.E. LOYALIST. Annual Fee for N on -Residents, 60o. The Regular Meetings ARE HELD AT THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE, TORONTO, ON THE SECOND THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH AT 4 P.M.