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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 lunmufBD n MEMORIALS or mi SERVOS FAMILY. BY WILLIAM KJRBY, F.R^.O. MSPIUNTMD PM>M " fBM OAlt ADIAN MBTBOSlSit JUdtiAXiyX.'' TOEONTO: W r L L ii M 3 R I O S . 1884. J li|ii, | „. | j^, .■^. ^=r?7ii7^sif^ir^i?*^^^^|TuT^ THE n United Empire Loyalists of Canada. ILLCruTRATKD BY MEMOEIALS OP THK SERVOS FAMILY. BY WILLIAM KIRBY, F.R.S.O. MEPRINTED FROM "THE CANADIAN METHODIST MAGAZINE." TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, 78 & 80 Kino Stmkt East 1884. 1^6092 .1 i 3^)<7 r THE raiTED EMPIRE LOYALISTS OF CAIADA, MEMORIALS OF THE SEEVOS FAMILY. "Victrix causa diis plaouit, sed victa Catoni." The existence at the present time of two great distinct politi- cal confederacies in North America, the United States and the. Dominion of Canada, is primarily owing to the long continuous movements of two opposing sections or parties of the English people in the land of our common ancestors; the party of monarchical and the party of republican tendencies, divisions which seem to be inherent in human nature itself. The Eeyolution of 1642 was the culmination of Piritau ascendency in England, the reaction restored the royal authority in the Constitution. The distinct party lines of English politics; ta.ke their modern form and under various names have come down to us from that time to the present. It will be found that, those party struggles in. the mother land furnish the key that unlocks the secret of British Canadian politics, principles, and tendencies — as distinct from the politics, principles, and tendencies of the United States — differences which perpetuate the division of North America into two distinct and rival, but not, it is hoped, unfriendly nations. To understand the true genius and origin of the English- speaking people in Canada we have to go back to the settlement of the New England Colonies by the thwarted and, to some extent, persecuted Puritans of the seventeenth century. They left their native land, full of bitterness, with no love for either its Church or monarchy. The English Commonwealth had been their ideal of civil government, and from the very first settle- ment of the Puritans in Massachussets their steady endeavour and policy was to separate themselves from the mother country and erect their ideal in a Bepublican Church and State on this continent. The germ of the,Araerican revolt was planted in New England from its very orip;in, and nothing the mother country could do for them — wars with France undertaken in their behalf, the conquest of Canada, tens of thousands of British lives lost, and hundreds of millions of British money spent in protecting them — was of any avail to excite a loyal and kindly feeling towards the mother country. There were, of course, thousands of New England men who formed honourable exceptions to the general disaffection of the Puritan population; but they were out- numbered and overborne by their discontented fellow-countrymen. In other colonies it was quite different. New York was colonized first by the Dutch and then by the English ; the Eng- lish settlers of New York were largely loyalist in principle. The same may be said of New Jersey, while the Quaker element in Pennsylvania and the German settlers were for the most part loyal and well affected to the Empire. It is not necessary here to go over the causes of the disputes which arose at first in New England with regard to the mother country. The questions once raised grew rapidly to a head. The Stamp Act and the Eevenue Acts of Great Britain, very impolitic certainly, yet in their intention good and excusable, were a bad means of bringing round a good end, namely, to supplement the want of a united common government among all the Colonies. These proposed measures raised the popular clamour in America. The infection of disloyalty to the Empire was zealously propa- gated from New England, and the people of all the Colonies, according to their ijentiment and opinions, became divided into ' two great parties which in the end developed into the party of the Kevolution and the party of the Unity of the Empire ; the former tending to a severance and the latter to the maintenance of the old National ties with the mother land. Of the progress of that great debate, and of the fierce and warlike tempers which it evoked, and of its final effect upon Canada, this memoir will afford some interesting evidence. if' Y y ( 5 ) If the seeds of disloyalty were sown in the New England Colonies from the beginning, so it is equally certain that the seeds of loyal connection with the Crown and Empire of Britain were sown in Canada and have ever borne the noblest and most glorious fruits. The settlement of this country by the ex- patriated loyalists of America was the leaven that has leavened the whole lump of Canadian nationality, and made this country what, I trust, it will never alter from — the most loyal, orderly, and progressive part of Britain's Empire. Yet we know and regret that modern history — English history through absolute ignorance, American history through suppres- sion or misrepresentation of facts — fails to do the slightest justice to the men who founded this Dominion. I speak not with reference to our French fellow-subjects, but to the United Empire Loyalists who have given Canada its form and pressure, stamping upon it the seal of the Crown, the emblem of the grandest Empire the world ever saw. Esto perpetua ! This memoir of personal history was written solely as a family record, to preserve traditions that have for a century been kept warm by the fireside. It relates to a family in respectable middle life, which may be taken as completely representa- tive of the great body of the loyalists who founded Upper Canada. The true history of Canada cannot be written without deep study and 'investigation into the principles, motives, and acts of the American loyalists. Yet how little does professed history record of them ! English writers on this subject, with few exceptions, take their views at second-hand from American sources, and I have failed to find more than one American writer who is able or willing to do justice to one-half of the American people who, during the revolutionary struggle, sided with the mother country ; and when defeated at last in their efforts to preserve the unity of the Empire, left their estates, homes, and honourable posi- tions in every department of life, and betook themselves to the wilds of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada, to start life afresh under the flag which they refused to forsake. The Americans have held their Centennial of Independence to commemorate the breaking up of the Empire in 1776. The de- iHi ( « )! soeudants of the U. E. Loyalists are proposing to celebrate in Toronto in 1884 the Centennial of the arrival in Upper Canada of the expatriated loyal Americans who founded this Province. •That great design has been warmly taken up by many de- scendants of the loyalists in Ontario It will do much lo pre- sent to the world the opposite side of the great American question of the past century, and show the true grounds and reasons of Canadian adherence to the British Empire — grounds and reasons which are too little understood except by our own people, who in the quiet of their homes live in the solid enjoyment of British freecCom, law and security, and desire no other. The following memoir of the Servos family is given as a typical example of the fortunes and fidelity of that old U. E. Loyalist stock to which Canada owes so much : — After the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, when the country had measurably recovered from the ruin and devastation of that period of trial and suiferiiig in the Father- land, the ambition of France and the thirst for glory in the young King Louis XIV. again plunged Germany into a long war in which he wrested from her the ancient principality of Alsace and annexed it to France, and which only in our day, 18.70, has been reconquered and restored to Germany. The reign of Louis XIY. and that of his contemporary Leopold the First of Austria, were memorable for the long, persistent and cruel persecutions of the Protestants in the dominions of each of those sovereigns. It were hard to tell to which of them the bloody palm was most due. Louis, after years of persecution against the most industrious and enlightened of his subjects, at last repealed the Edict of Nantes, and with it the only guarantee for toleration in France. The Huguenots were persecuted and proscribed; they escaped by tens of thousands from France to England and wherever an asylum a£forded itself. Leopold of Austria was equally harsh and intolerant. Hungary was the chief seat of Protestantism in his dominions. A fierce persecution was directed against them with the result of expelling thousands of Hungarian Protestants, who found ii I I ( ^ ) refuge in the Protestant States of Germany, Holland, and Eng- land. Among the Protestant refugees from Hungary, about the middle of the seventeenth century, were the ancestors of the Servos family, of whom a brief account is here recorded. On the right bank of the Rhine, eight miles below Goblentz, lay the ancient principality of Wied, a principality of the Empire and the inheritance of a long line of liberal and enlightened rulers. Their residence was the old feudal castle of Wied, overlooking the broad Rhine and a fertile domain of vineyards, cornfields, and meadows, towns and villages which gave the title to their princes, of Counts of Wied and Lords of Runkel and Issenberg. The most remarkable of these Counts of Wied was Prince Alexander, who in the beginning of the seventeenth century founded the town of Neu Wied on the Rhine, and made it the seat of his Government, instead of the old city of Alt Wied, which had previoiisly been the capital. Prince Alexander, at the time of the persecutions in France and Hungary, offered his protection and a free asylum to men of every religion in his new city of Neu Wied, which offer was gladly and eagerly accepted by the persecuted Huguenots and Hungarians, a great many of whom flocked in and took up their abode under the noble Prince of Wied. The city greatly pros- pered, and soon became a bright landmark in Southern Germany, known throughout Europe as a city of refuge for the persecuted Protestants of the continent. Among the refugees from Hungary were the family of Servos, They were probably Hungarian, of Servian origin, as this is a Hungarian form for Serbos, pronounced Servos, meaning Servian. They settled in Alt Wied, and subsequently removed to the new city of Neu Wied, where they lived and prospered, some of them taking up the military profession in the service of their adopted and afterwards of their native prince. Christopher Servos, born at Alt Wied about 1670, is the first whom we shall particularize as the ancestor of the Canadian branch of the family. He entered the service of the Prince of Wied as a private soldier of his guard in 1687, and in which by successive promotions, he attained the rank of officer. He served ( 8 ) in the army thirty-nine years and nine months; he went through the great campaigns of Marlborough, serving in the German contingent which formed a large part of the army of that great commander. On the termination of his long and honourable military service, Christopher Servos being then a man well in years, wibh a wife and a family of six grown children, determined to emigrate to one of the English Colonies of North America, about which he had heard a good deal during his campaigns with the English armies. Prince Frederick William, of Wied, the reigning prince at that time, gave him the most honourable discharge from the military ' service, and with it a large letter of introduction and recommen- dation under his own hand and seal, to the Governors of New York and Pennsylvania, in one of which Provinces he intended to settle. This letter, written in old German on parchment, with the signature and seal of the Prince of Wied, is still preserved by the family, and is now in the possession of Mr. Ethelbert Servos, of Hamilton, Ontario. It recommends Christopher Servos to the respective Governors of the Provinces of New York and Pennsyl- vania, and reads as follows : " We, Frederick Wilhelm, of the Holy Roman Empire, Count of Wied and Lord of Runke' and Issenberg, do hereby declare that Christopher Servos, a native of our principality, entered our military service in the year 1687. He served in our Guard as a musqueteer twelve years, as corporal five years, sergeant fifteen years, and as Landsfahndrick seven years and nine months, in all thirty-nine years and nine months. During this long service he was always distinguished as a brave and honourable man, faithful in the performance of every military duty and in all the relations of life of strictest integrity, upright and honourable, as becomes a good man and faithful soldier to be. " We, therefore, of our own motion and free will, understanding that he desires to emigrate to America with his wife and six children, do hereby grant him an honourable discharge from our service, and rielease him from ^ all our spiritual and civil jurisdictions, dclaring hereby the great satisfac- tion we have had from his long and honourable services. Not desiring to lose him, yet since of his own desire he has resolved to go with his wife ami six children to America, the better to provide for their future welfar^^d will betake himself either to New York or Philadelphia, and in ord(^that he may be favourably received by the Honourable Governors of New York or Pennsylvania as a man every way worthy of their assistance and patronage, we recommend the said Christopher Servos to them, pledging % \ iiiJW'UWJ'^' '■ '■■• ■j,''W'.^««W,fl!'»':',WT^V)*H'^*B'l«TiT?JT^.7a> ,^' " ( 9 ) ourselves by any means in our power to the said Honourable Governors, to reciprocate any kindness, good-will, and assistance which they may be pleased to show to the said Christopher Servos. "And in order to further ratify these presents, we subscribe them with our own hand and order them to be sealed with the great seal of our principality. " Given in this our Residenz Hoflf at Ncu Wied am Rhein. " April 27, 1726. « Frederick." . I ■' ■■ In the summer of 1726, Christopher Servos with his family embarked for North America, where this worthy pioneer of German emigration duly arrived and landed at New York. We can imagine the stout, rigid old German soldier of forty years' service callinjg and presenting his letter of introduction to Governor Burnet — a clever man, the son of the famous Bishop Burnet — who doubtless received him most kindly. Whether he obtained from the Governor a grant of lands, or whether he pur- chased lands, is not now known, but he presently acquired pos- session of a large tract on the Charlotte River near Schoharie, in the Province of New York, and settled there with his sons, who were young men, and commenced to clear the lands and make a new home for his family. His sons were intelligent, energetic, and trustworthy men. They cleared several farms, built grist and saw mills and started stores, as the fashion then was, upon the frontier settlements, traded with the Indians, and in time became prosperous, rich and widely known. The Servos settlement on the Charlotte was one of the landmarks of the frontier of the Province of New York and Pennsylvania until the Revolution. Old Christopher Servos died at a very advanced age, but in what year is ujt known. His sons, true to the military spirit of their father, held commis- sions in the Provincial Militia, and served under Sir William Johnson and Colonel John Butler in the French war. They were at the Battle of Lake George, 1754, and at the siege of Fort Niagara, 1759. The family were on familiar and intimate terms with Sir William Johnson, one of their sisters marrying a near relative of Sir William — Colonel Johnson — whom she accom- panied through all the campaigns of the French war. That lady came to Canada and died at the Servos homestead, Niagara Township, in 1811, at the great age of one hundred and four HMHi Mm ^^m ^"ipppC" ( 10 ) years, and is buried in the family burying-ground, Lake Boad, Niagara, where a monument records her memory. After the close of the French war, the sons of Christopher Servos devoted themselves afresh to farming, milling, and merchandize, and prospered much. As magistrates, men of business, and officers of the Militia, they were, greatly respected throughout the district where they resided. When the agitation which preceded the Revolution began in the Colony of New York, the Servos estates were held by grand- sons of the old German soldier from the Rhine. The eldest of these, and the acknowledged head of the family, was Thomas Servos, a man of large property and great business on the Charlotte River, who had four sons, young men, living with him at home. The troubles of the Colonies arose mainly out of the per- manent disaffection of the Puritan element in New England, which was disloyal from the ' very origin of its settlement in Massachussets ; but the constant w&rs with France and the dangers ever dreaded from Canada, kept down open manifesta- tions of disloyalty, until the conquest of Canada relieved New England of all fear of France, and enabled the heads of disaffec-- tion to be raised with boldness. The way in which some of the Colonies had shirked their ob- ligations in regard to their quotas of troops and money to be furnished for carrying on the war with France had long been a standing grievance, trouble and complaint. As is well known, the proposal for a Colonial union in 1754, at the commencement of the last French, war was mainly intended to equalize the common share of public expenditures and the quotas of troops and money to be furnished by the respective Colonies. The failure of the Convention that met at Albany to establish an equitable union of the Colonies, was the true reason of the measures taken up after the conquest of Canada, to equalize by Act of Parliament of Great Britain the contributions of the <^everal Colonies to the common object of the defence of America. As was remarked, the quotas of money and troops to be fur- nished by the respective Colonies for the French war had been most unequally paid, some Colonies giving their full shares. ( 11 ) others evdding their dues in the most dishonest manner. There was no central authority to compel payment but England, and she had no constitutional machinery to take the task properly upon herself. The passing of the Stamp Act was an effort — a rash and injudicious one — to raise a common fund for the military defence of the Colonies, and do for them what had failed to be acc(»n- plished by the projected union of 1754. The great error of this policy was in the British Govern- ment not considering that strong constitutional objection would be raised to the Imperial Parliament's legislating on a matter of great public concern which should only be legislated upon by a Parliament of the Colonies themselves. England should have insisted on the project of union being carried out which would have enabled the Colonies to do for themselves constitutionally what the necessity of the case required. The Stamp Act and the other Eevenue Bills, the proceeds of which were to be wholly spent in America, were wrong attempts to do a right thing, viz., to make the Colonies deal fairly and honestly by each other, and contribute equitably to the common burthen of their de- fence and government. An immense agitation was started in Kew England over the Stamp Act which, by political arts, was extended to the other Colonies. The Province of New York was on the whole loyal to British connection ; its local politics had long been headed by the De- lancy and Lbvingstone families respectively, the former repre- senting the Tory, the latter the Whig party, with the preponder- ance generally in favour of the former. The Tories or loyalists generally disapproved of the Stamp Act and other measures of like nature, but theirs was a loyal, constitutional opposition, and few at first of the Whigs even in New York, outside of a band of professed agitators in the city, headed by one McDougal, the publisher of a violent Whig newspaper, ever contemplated revo- lution. The loyal party, while disapproving of many of the measures of the Imperial Government, saw nothing in them of sufficient importance to justify the factious clamour that was raised in Boston, which they well understood as arising not so much from plpp mmm ( 12 ) fear of oppression and taxation, as from the r aral disaffection of the New England people, and the selfisu interests of the merchants of Boston, who, like* Hancock, had grown rich by their systematic violation of the customs and trade regulations of the Colony. The Stamp Act was a god-send to these people, in giving them a taxation cry, and presenting the question before the people, as a violation of their constitutional rights. The loyalists of the Eevolution were not blind defenders of arbitrary and unconstitutional power, any more than the Whigs were the virtuous assertors of pure liberty, which they pretended to be. The former, while admitting the impolicy of the Stamp Act and other revenue measures, saw nothing in them to warrant the disruption of the Empire. The majority of the people were opposed to violence. The Colonial Assembly, lawfully represent- ing the whole people of New York, was loyal to British connec- tion, and refused to sanction the Declaration of Independence. The election of the so-called Provincial Congress of New York, chosen by Whig partizans exclusively (the loyalists being disfranchized unless they would swear allegiance to Congress), threw New York into the most violent civil war of any of the Colonies. The Provincial Congress of the State decreed the confiscation of the property of all persons who adhered to their lawful Government. Loyalists were arrested, proscribed and declared to be " traitors " by men who were themselves legally and undeniably the only traitors in the Colony ! - The most wealthy of the loyal people of New York were marked out for plunder, the most spirited for arrest and con- finement. Men who had been born in the Colony and lived all their lives creditably as good subjects — magistrates, officers of Militia, members of Assembly, merchants, farmers, and clergy- men who had taken the oaths of allegiance to the King, and upon whose consciences these oaths were held binding — were required, on pain of losing both property and liberty, to fall in with the revolutionary course of the Whigs and swear allegiance to^the rebel Congress. The majority of the people of the Province of New York refused to become rebels, and would undoubtedly, if left to them- selves, have preserved New York from revolution. The tem- J i tmmmmm tmm wimm .. '1 \frmti, I ui I Liini I .|iii |iii|. im • il^nPIH^^IfyiimpHlllppppiPiipiRipiil^pMIIMHHM ( 16 .) necessary to strike in all their force in order to save the Bevoln- tion. They did so. A large French army and a powerful fleet were sent to the rescue. That combined movement of the French fleet with Washington's forces was suddenly made on Yorktown, where Oornwallis had gone to meet the reinforce- ments of Clinton from New York. As is knowu, the French and Americans arrived at Yorktown first They attacked Cornwallis with an overpowering strength, and compelled him to surrender only a week before the tardy reinforcement of Clinton appeared ofT Yorktown, which would have turned the scale the other way. Party spirit in England completed the victory over Cornwallis. The Government was compelled, by a vote of the House, to accept overtures of peace on the basis of recognition of the indepen- dence of the Colonies. The cause of the Empire was even then far from lost, and, as is known, no persons in America were more surprised than Washington and Adams, in 1783, at the sudden and unexpected offer of peace from England. The recognition of the independence of the Colonies com- pleted the ruin of the loyalists, for though the treaty of peace contained stipulations for the security of their persons and pro- perty, and for the collection of their debts, those stipulations were everywhere shamefully evaded. Congress made the treaty, but these stipulations were left to the separate States for per- formance. The loyalists were everywhere persecuted. Their property that had been confiscated was in no instance restored, they were disqualified from civil rights and from voting at elec- tions; and, in short, life in their native country was made intoler- able to them. They left their country in tens of thousands, to seek a new home under the flag for which they had fought for so long ancl so bravely. It is estimated that up to November, 1784, a hundred thousand loyalists left the port of New Yoric alone. Charleston, Savannah, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and. even Boston added thousands more to the number of refugees, while upwards of ten thousand loyalists from the interior of New York and Pennsylvania traversed the vast wilderness of forests and took up their future homes in Canada, forming settlements at various points from the Detroit Eiver to the St. Lawrence. Such a wholesale flight of the most respectable, intelligent, and industrious population of any country had not been seen !iir-7f^P""^'«^v ^wi^Pf^WfwppiiniwBiBiwr-^ww? ( 17 ) since the exile of the French Protestants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1687. While the United States lost the very best and most moral of their people, Canada was the gainer by having its territory settled and the foundation of itd greatness laid by the advent oi these loyal, high-piincipled men, who preferred starting the world anew in the wilderness, luther than be untrue to their King and the British flag, which was their own native symbol. The King, in order to relieve their sufferings and trials, granted them lands in Canada and the other Provinces — to every loyalist, man, woman, and child, and every child born of them, two hundred acres of land. These "United Empire Grants," as they were called, formed the inheritance of the people of Canada, and are a perpetual reminder of the loyalty of the founders of our Province, who have impressed their character upon it to this day. Parlia- ment voted fifteen million dollars by way of partial indemnity for the losses of the Loyalists. But as Daniel Servos said : — " It was impossible to pay for the loss of a continent, and the King was the greatest loser of all ! None of the Servos family would apply for any share of that indemnity." Three of the brothers settled in the Niagara Distict, and one at the Long Sault, near Cornwall. Strangers ask, " Why are the British North Americans so loyal to Britain and to the Empire ? " If they had read our true history, they would ^^now and not wonder at it. A higher and more ennobling character is not to be found in any nation. Fort Niagara was one of the posts retained by the British on account of the evasion by the Americans of the Articles of the Peace of 1783, relating to the property and debts of the loyalists. It was not given up to the Americans until 1796, when the American Government, by Jay's treaty, engaged afresh to allow the loyalists to recover their lands and debfe. The fort was then ceded to them, but, as is known, neither the treaty of 1783 nor Jay's treaty of 1795, has, as to these stipulations, be^n carried out up to the present time, and, it is safe to say, never will be. , Upon the breaking out of the war of 1812, the three sons of Captain Daniel Servos, with the traditional spirit and loyalty of their race, took up arms in defence of their King and country. They all held commissions as of&cers in the First ni|,ipi^P ■ppwfm^pi^iH "pr ( 18 ) Lincoln Militia, under the command of Cols. Butler and Claus. They served in all the engagements on the Niagara frontier. Oapt. John D. Servos superintended the transhipment of the boats across the land from the Four-mile Creek to the Niagara Eiver, on the night of the 18th of December, to convey the troops across for the assault on Fort Niagara, which took place before daybreak on the morning of the 19th December, 1813, six days after the burning and evacuation of the town of Niagara by the enemy. He and his brother Daniel were active in the storming and capture of that fort, as their father before them had been in its capture from the French in 1759. ' The widow of Capt. Daniel Servos of the Bevolution was a woman of great spirit and resolution. It is related of her that during the occupation of Niagara by the Americans, from May to December, 1813, marauding parties of the enemy plundered the houses in the country without mercy, there being usually only the women of the family at home, the men being away with the army. A party of eleven marauders rode out one day to the house of Capt. John Servos, where she lived, and began to search the house for valuables and money. Not much was found, as such articles were generally buried in the ground during the war. On turning up a bed, the party found a new regimental red- coat of her son, Capt. John, which they began to cut in pieces with their swords, with many derisive and offensive remarks, which fired the old lady with such anger (she was Welsh by the way) that she gave them a plain piece of her mind, calling them cowards, who would not have dared look at the coat if her son bad it on ! This enraged the officer in command of the party so much that he grew savage and dealt the old lady a violent blow on the breast with the hilt of his sword, wounding her severely, from the effects of which blow she never recovered, but suffered acutely from it until her death. The short, futile rebellion of McKenzie, in 1837, found the old hereditary spirit active as ever in the three brothers. On the news of the rising of McKenzie, near Toronto, Colonel Servos immediately ordered the First Lincoln out on the Queen's service, and although its limits extended nearly forty miles, the famous old regiment assembled next day jon the common at Niagara,, nineteen hundred strong. The rebellion was suppressed at- fmm ffWTT ( 19 ) Toronto as soon almost as started, but on th« occupation of i^Avy Island by McKenzie, Colonel Servos did duty at Chippawa with his regiment until the evacuation of the island in January, 1838. His brother, Capt D. K. Servos, of Barton, led his troop of cavalry, under the command of Colonel MacNab« to the town- ship of Scotland, and put out all sparks of rebellion in that quarter. After the peace of 1783, Capt. Daniel Servos, formerly of Charlotte Eiver, relying on the stipulations of that treaty for the recovery of the lands and debts of the loyalists, went from Niagara on horseback through the wilderness — well known to him, however — down to his former home, in order to bring back his little daughter, Magdalene, then nine years oldj whom he had left with her mother's relations during the war, and also to recover, if possible, his estates and the debts owing to him. The lands he found irrecoverable, notwithstanding the treaty. The State of New York, in order to secure the Whig spoils, had immediately after the treaty legislaced afresh on the subject, and ' effectually prevented the (claims of any loyalist from being prose- cuted in the State Courts. The debts were placed in the same condition. Nothing could be got back from the greedy hands which had seized them, and, except in the case of a few honour- able men, former loyalists, who paid their debts, all the rest repudiated their liabilities and set him at defianca And as no State Court would allow suit he gave up the attempt and returned to his new home at Niagara with his little daughter, thankful that by the liberality of the King and bis own efforts he could live in Canada in plenty. He returned home by way of Oswego, coasting in an open boat along the south shore of Lake Ontario from Oswego to Niagara. That child, Magdalene, became in time the mother of the wife — still living — of the writer of this memoir. The descendants of this loyal old family are numbered by hundreds in various parts of Upper Canada, being very numerous with their collaterals, the Whitmores and others, in the County of Lincoln. It is safe to say that not a disloyal man has ever been found among them. This narrative may be taken as fairly representative of that of thousands of American loyalists, who in the war of the Bevolu- ^1 ( 20 ) tion " stood for the King/' and whose brave and self-sacrificing exertions in defence of the unity of the Empire brought ruin upon themselves in their ancient homes, but was the making and glory of Canada by filling this Dominion with men of such chosen virtue. " If England," as a Puritan divine once boasted, " was winnowed of its choice grain for the sowing of America," it is certain that America was reaped and winnowed afresh at the Revolution, and its very choicest men selected by Providence ibr the peopling of this Dominion. By the loss of these men America was drained of its best elements, and suffered a moral loss which it could ill spare. The obligations of duty in defence of right against the many or against the few, fidelity to the flag and Empire, fear of God and honour of the King, keeping inviolate their oaths of allegiance and their very thoughts free from sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion, — all these things were summed up in the one word, ** Loyalty," as understood by the men who left the United States to live under their native flag in Canada. Some of the best and wisest men of the United States have brushed aside the thick covering of fiction and obloquy cast over the memory of these men in popular American his- tories, and do not conceal their admiration of their character, courage, and devotion to the highest principles for which they willingly sacrificed everything except their honour. Truth will have its revenge in justice at last, and I venture to say that a century hence, America will be more proud of her exiled loyalists than of the vaunted patriots who banished and despoiled them. Printbd at tub " Chribtjan Guardian " Opficr, 15 Court Strkkt, Toronto. if-sacrificing rought ruin making and len of such nee boasted, f America," d afresh at Providence these men tred a moral the many or of God and f allegiance conspiracy le one word, nited States lited States nd obloquy aerican his- ir character, which they Truth will say that a led loyalists iled them. 'i JLL umiL iit^e ORONTO,