TORIES
OF
NEW HAMPSHIRE
IN THE
WAR OF THE REVOLUTION
——————————
Otis Grant Hammond, .
Superintendent of the New Hampshire Historical Society
——————————
Concord, N. H.
New Hampshire Historical Society
1917
——————————
THE TORIES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
By Otis G. Hammond.
The Word "Tory," although it has been variously modified
by circumstances from its earliest use as applied to the
outlawed Papists of Ireland in the reign of Charles II, down
to its giving way to the present term, "Conservative," has
always had a negative significance, an idea of opposition
to political changes and a reverence for the existing order of
government. To use a modern synonym, the Tories were
always "stand-patters."
Since the Restoration, a Tory's political opponent has
always been a Whig, the forefather of the Liberal of present-day
English politics. The Whig was always the restless,
ambitious, progressive element, eager for a change, without
necessarily having established the fact that the change
would be practical or beneficial to his party.
During the Revolution, and since in America, as might be
expected in view of the victory of the opposition, the
word "Tory" acquired a peculiarly ignominious meaning
which did not pertain to its earlier use. It came by common
consent to be used as almost synonymous with the
word "traitor." Had the Tory party been victorious in
the struggle the same significance would have been forced
upon the word Whig.
The word "Tory" was applied indiscriminately to all
who refused or failed to support the Revolutionary movement,
regardless of their reasons for so doing, or of the degree
of activity they displayed against that movement.
The Tories applied to themselves the name "Loyalist,"
a term respectable and admirable in its meaning, but not
definite per se. A man may be loyal to anything to which
he has once attached himself, his country, his church, his
superior officer, or his wife. The Loyalists were loyal to
their King. Those who rebelled against the Crown considered
themselves loyal to their constitutional rights as
Englishmen, and to the new standards of government they
had set up in order to maintain those rights.
On the other side the name "Whig," an old English political
term, applied originally to the country party, as
opposed to the Tory, the court or administration party,
and the name "Patriot," as the colonist loved to call himself,
are equally lacking in definite and accurate meaning
as applied to those Americans who rose in rebellion against
the unjust and burdensome demands of George III and his
Parliament. The men of both sides considered themselves
patriots, and the word is quite as applicable, in its true
meaning, to one side as to the other. In this discussion I
shall venture the use of the terms Royalist and Revolutionist
as substitutes for the names we have inherited
from our forefathers, substitutes more accurate in their
significance and entirely free from the false interpretations
of hatred and strife. A Royalist is one who maintains his
loyalty to his King through the stress of rebellion. A
Revolutionist is one who has risen in arms against a constituted
authority and won.
In this present day we have no right to consider a man
a Royalist unless we find in the official archives, or in contemporary
private records of good authority, some evidence
of his preference for the continuation of the Royal jurisdiction
in America, or some evidence of his having suffered for
such opinions. The fact that a man was suspected,
harassed, arrested, or even imprisoned does not necessarily
prove that he was a true Royalist, but proves only that he
was so considered at that time by some people. Trials on
these charges were not held before a court of law, but before
the provincial committee of safety or some local committee,
and there was one in every town. The judges in these
cases were not versed in the law, and there were no rules of
evidence. Witnesses were allowed to say what they pleased,
and hearsay evidence was freely admitted.
Commitments to prison were made oftener on reasonable
suspicion than on proven charges. But it is now too late
to appeal any of these cases or to review the evidence, as
comparatively little of it was ever recorded. In considering
the whole class of Royalists in New Hampshire we must
then, necessarily, include all who appear to have been under
suspicion, bearing in mind the prejudices of the time, the
excited state of the public mind, and the crude methods of
trial by which the defendants were judged. Of about 200
suspected persons in New Hampshire only 76 were of sufficient
guilt to be included in the proscription act, and to
suffer the penalty of banishment, and against several of
these there is no evidence on record except the fact that
they had left the State.
We must not consider the entire body of Royalists in
New Hampshire as actively engaged in opposing the measures
of the Revolutionists. Many of them maintained a
strict, dignified, and silent neutrality, watching the contest
with disapproval, but obeying the laws established by the
State in which they retained their abode, paying the taxes
assessed upon them, and observing a careful regard for the
highly excited and nervous state of public opinion. They
were passive Royalists, and among their number we find
many officials of the Royal government, members of the
oldest, best educated, wealthiest, and most aristocratic
families, clergymen of the Church of England and many of
their communicants, men of the learned professions, and
aged men who did not easily change the opinions and attachments
of long life under the Crown. But harmless as
their conduct was, these men did not escape the penalty of
their convictions. With others more active they suffered
prosecution by the authorities and persecution by unauthorized
and irresponsible individuals. In this respect the
war of the Revolution was no different from any other war.
Non-combatants residing in the enemy's country never
lead a peaceful, happy, or prosperous life, and a memory of
this unjust feature of warfare still rankles in the minds of
thousands, north and south, who suffered insult, abuse, and
financial ruin in the great War of the Rebellion. It is the
inevitable result of the high tension which is always produced
by a conflict of arms, which sees things that are not,
and magnifies things that are. The treatment the Royalists
received in America, though in many cases unjust and severe,
was only what might fairly have been expected, and
what many others have suffered before and since in similar
circumstances. It was only a normal price they had to
pay for their unyielding principles, their minority, and their
inability or failure to leave the field of action.
In March, 1776, Congress deemed it necessary to ascertain
the extent of Royalism in the colonies, and recommended
that a test be submitted to the people. It was considered
that those who signed it could be depended upon to support
the Revolutionary movement, and those who did not sign
it were to be disarmed and so made for a time incapable of
effective opposition. This pledge was called the Association
Test, and the text was as follows:
"We, the Subscribers, do hereby solemnly engage and
promise that we will to the utmost of our Power, at the
Risque of our Lives and Fortunes, with Arms oppose the
Hostile Proceedings of the British Fleets and Armies,
against the United American Colonies."
By request of Congress this was presented for signature
to all males above twenty-one years of age except lunatics,
idiots, and negroes. Printed copies were sent to all the
towns, and they were presented to the people for signature.
Unfortunately not all the returns from New Hampshire
towns have been preserved in our archives.
The nearest census was that of 1773. At that time there
were 180 granted towns in the State, but many of them were
unincorporated, unorganized, and even unsettled. The
census of 1773 includes returns from 136 towns, and gives
the province a population of 72,092, with several towns
omitted. The returns of the census of 1786 are from 138
towns, the delinquents being far more numerous than in
1773, and a population of 95,452 is shown for the State.
So that we may fairly assume the population of the colony
in 1776 at 75,000, dwelling in about 150 settled or partly
settled towns.
The 87 towns from which the Association Test returns
have been preserved in the archives represented a total of
50,682 of population, or 66 per cent, of the population of the
colony at that time. These returns bear the signatures
of 8,567 men, and the names of 781 who did not sign. One
hundred and thirty-one of these refused because of religious
scruples, conscience, or other reasons not hostile to the
cause of the colonies, and 4 were reported absent, leaving
646, or 6.9 per cent, of possible signers, who refused to sign
without apparent reason other than an unwillingness to
support the war.
In Acworth, Antrim, Atkinson, Barnstead, Bow, Brookline,
Canaan, Candia, Canterbury, Chester, Concord,
Conway, Dublin, Effingham, Enfield, Gilsum, Lebanon,
Lempster, Loudon, Manchester, Meredith, Newport, North
Hampton, Peterborough, Piermont, Rindge, Rye, Seabrook,
Sunapee, Surry, Wakefield, 31 towns, all signed.
In Danville, Kingston, and Northwood all but 19 signed,
and these declined for reasons of conscience, and 5 of these
were Danville and Northwood Quakers. In Kingston one
man, James Carruth, a Scotchman, "Declines obliging himself
to take up Arms against his Native Country but Declares
he will neaver take up Arms against America, & is
willing to bear his Proportion of the publick taxes with his
Townsmen." One man, Moses Welch, "refuses to take
up arms & pleads Conscience for an excuse." Twelve men
"Appear to be fearful that the Signing of this Declaration
would in some measure be an infringement on their Just
Rights & Libertys but they Appear to be Friendly to their
Country & Several of them have Ventured their lives
in the American Cause & the 3 last named Persons are now
in the Army."
Of those who refused to sign for reasons of religion or
conscience 73 were Quakers, located in Danville 4, Kensington
15, Northwood 1, Rochester 22, Weare 31.
Other reasons for not signing are very interesting, amusing,
some of them, and worthy of analysis.
In Bedford the Rev. John Houston declined "firstly
Because he did not apprehend that the Honble committee
meant that ministers Should Take up arms as Being inconsistant
with their Ministerial Charge, 2ndly Because he was
already confin'd to the County of Hillsborough, therefore he
thinks he Ought to be set at liberty before he Should Sign
the Sd obligation, 3rdly Because there is three men Belonging
to his Family already Inlisted in the Continental army."
In Gilmanton, of 35 men refusing to sign, 21 state their
reasons as follows: "there being some scruples on our minds
we Cant Conscientiously sign it and we beg Leave to assign
our Reasons which are as follows, viz., we agree and Consent
to the Declaration of Independence on the British Crown,
and we are willing to pay our proportion to the support of
the United Colonies, but as to defend with arms, it is
against our Religious principles and pray we may be Excused."
In Kensington the selectmen, in returning the names
of those who would not sign, after making a list of 15 names,
said "So Far is Quakers as these two collums and What is to
Come your honours may Call What you please." Then
follow the names of five men who apparently did not stand
high in the estimation of the selectmen.
In Loudon all signed except "one or two that lived very
much out of the way." The failure to obtain these signatures
was by the indolence of the selectmen by their own
confession.
In Newcastle, of the 4 who are returned as refusing to
sign, one, Richard Yeaton, Jr., is recorded as a soldier, and
was probably at that time absent in the service.
In Nottingham, of 25 non-signers, 10 are credited with
having advanced money to hire men to go to Crown Point.
In Richmond 12 men give as their reasons for not signing
that "We do not Believe that it is the Will of God to take
away the Lives of our fellow crators, not that We Come Out
Against the Congress or the Amarican Liberties, but When
Ever We are Convinct to the Contory We are Redy to join
our Amarican Brieathen to Defend by Arms Against the
Hostile Attempts of the British fleets and Armies."
In Sandown "Samuel Stevens did not Sign but is Since
gon into the war."
The Test was not satisfactory to James Treadway of
Canaan, nor were the ordinary rules of warfare severe enough
to satiate his blood-thirsty patriotism. He signed, but
imposed these conditions: "that no man who is taken a
captive from the British forces be made an Officer or let be
a Soldier in the Continental Army and 2ly that Every
American found & taken in armes against the United Colonies
be immediately put to Death, and 3ly that all & every
of the British Troops that are Captivated by the Continental
forces by sea or land, or any other way taken Shall be
kept in Prison or Close Confinement, & 4ly that Every
Commanding Officer or a Soldier, or any Person or Persons
employed in any business whatsoever in the Continental
Forces, who is found and proved to be a Traitor to the
United Colonies in America be put to Death Immediately."
Upon whom he imposed these conditions, or whom he expected
to carry out his revised rules of war in order to secure
his allegiance to the cause of independence does not appear.
Moses Flanders of South Hampton also signed on condition
that the acts or advice of the Continental Congress
relating to minute-men be complied with.
In the town of Temple the Association Test was construed
literally as involving not only enlistment into the service,
but extraordinary efforts in the field after such enlistment,
and in town meeting the text of the document was so revised
that the inhabitants might sign it without doing violence
to their consciences. The selectmen said on their return of
the Test, "We produced to the inhabitants of this Town in
Town Meeting the Paper proposed by the Committee of
Safety to be Signd by the Inhabitants of this Colony. Few,
if any of the Inhabitants were willing to engage & promis as
there proposed, to oppose by Arms to the utmost of their
power the hostile Attempts of ye British Fleets & Armies—
As this seem'd to the Inhabitants plainly to imply Something
far more than any Common Enlistment into the
Service, over engaging as soldiers directly & during the
Continuance of the war, as well as exerting ouer selves
faithfully when engaged: this, at least, being within the
Compass of our power. But it did not appear to the inhabitants
prudent or Necessary for any, or in any Degree
lawfull for all thus to engage. The Town directly adopted
the Form of Association Signd on this paper which they
and we hope expresses all Required by the general Congress."
The revised form adopted was thus:
"We the Subscribers, do hereby solemnly Profess our
Intire willingness, at the Risque of our Lives and Fortunes,
with Arms, to oppose the Hostile Attempts of the British
Fleets, and Armies, against the United American Colonies,
when Ever And to such A Degree as Such Attempts of
Britain may Require." This was signed by all but three
of those to whom it was presented.
Refusing to sign the Association Test did not, alone,
make a man a Royalist, nor did the signing of it make him
in fact a Revolutionist. The Association Test was promulgated
for the purpose of ascertaining the sentiment of every
man in the colonies who was qualified to bear arms. The
declaration therein was not one of mere moral support to the
cause of America, but was in its actual words a solemn promise
to resist the power of Great Britain by force of arms; and
the signer pledged his fortune and even his life in defense of
American liberty. It was a powerful obligation, almost
an enlistment into the armies of the United Colonies.
Many who signed it never saw a moment's service in field or
garrison, although they had sworn to take up arms to resist
the invasion which afterwards occurred. Many who refused
to sign it have left on record no evidence of opposition,
by word or deed, to the establishment of an independent
government. Some who signed it were afterwards convicted
as Royalists, and suffered various penalties inflicted
by duly authorized officers of the State, by irresponsible
gatherings of the people, or by the malice of individuals.
Some who refused to sign it were undoubted patriots, and
supported the measures for carrying on the war to the
extent of their moral and financial ability.
The Association Test was presented to young and old,
able-bodied and infirm alike, the lame, the halt, and the
blind, and was generally regarded in the light in which it
was circulated, as a test of allegiance or opposition to the
Revolutionary movement. Those who refused to sign it did
so for various reasons; some because they honestly believed
that the colonies had no just cause for resorting to the extremity
of rebellion against the Crown; some because their
love for the mother country and their reverence for English
law and government caused them to look with horror upon
any plan for disunion, or even any questioning of the justice
and wisdom of Royal decrees; some because they read the
Association Test literally, and were unable to perform its
requirements, being either physically incapacitated for
active service, or morally opposed to any act of war; some
because they believed that, although the colonies had just
cause for opposing the measures of the home government, a
resort to war would lead only to sure defeat and an increased
burden of taxation and oppression; some because of private
pique and resentment of certain measures affecting their
own personal welfare; some because of actual persecution
by which they were afterwards driven into the British lines.
Those who signed the Test were also actuated by various
motives. There can be no question that most of them did
so from purely patriotic impulses, fully convinced that the
attitude of Parliament towards the colonies, from the Stamp
Act down to the Boston Port Bill, was unjust and oppressive,
and that they were denied the natural political liberties
accorded to Englishmen in every other part of the King's
dominions, and constitutionally guaranteed to all the King's
subjects wherever they might dwell. But there were those
who signed for mercenary reasons, and paid the taxes levied
on their property for carrying on the war to the end that
they might preserve their estates from the ruin which was
more or less certain to be visited upon the hated minority.
There were also those who yielded to threats, and petty but
continued and determined annoyances, which impressed their
minds with the belief that what was then but an annoyance
was the forerunner of certain disaster.
I find record evidence of guilt or suspicion of Royalist
tendencies against about 200 men in New Hampshire.
Many of these were prosecuted on suspicion founded on
evidence of the most flimsy texture, and the formal charges
brought against them were such as counterfeiting, or attempting
to circulate counterfeit paper money, trying to
spread small pox, or saying things, which spoken carelessly
or in jest, gave their neighbors a long sought opportunity
of revenge, or of posing before the authorities as zealous
advocates of liberty. So that these figures do not represent
the actual number of Royalists in New Hampshire, but the
number of those who were, by any possible pretext, brought
under official suspicion.
There was undoubtedly much counterfeiting in all the
colonies, but there is no evidence that there was any concerted
or organized attempt at this practice among the
Royalists, although individually they did, as Gen. Sullivan
says, disparage the value of colonial bills of credit in comparison
with British or Spanish gold. The paper money of
the Revolutionary period was crude in design, of many different
forms, each colony issuing its own series, and the
Federal government still other series, and the business of
counterfeiting was extremely easy and profitable. As the
war progressed paper money became so plentiful as to be
enormously depreciated from its face value in specie, and in
the Continental Army depreciation pay rolls were made
up every year for paying to the soldiers the lost value of
their wages. In these circumstances it is hardly fair to
charge the Royalists with the responsibility for all the
counterfeiting that was perpetrated in the colonies. As to
the accusation that they attempted to spread the small pox
in order to lessen the fighting force against Great Britain, it
is too absurd and lacking in proof to be worth a moment's
consideration. This was a hallucination natural to the
time when small pox was one of the most dreaded diseases
of a military camp. Vaccination had not been discovered,
but inoculation with true small pox was extensively practised
with the object of gaining immunity by having the disease
in a degree somewhat modified from the normal by
medical care, and, if possible, under hospital conditions, from
the beginning.
In May, 1775, Philip Bailey, James McMaster, and
Thomas Achincloss, all of Portsmouth, were persuaded to
sign recantations like this:
"Whereas, I the subscriber, have, for a long series of time,
both done and said many things that I am sensible has
proved of great disadvantage to this Town, and the Continent
in general; and am now determined by my future conduct
to convince the publick that I will risk my life and
interest in defense of the constitutional privileges of this
Continent, and humbly ask the forgiveness of my friends
and the Country in general for my past conduct." (Am.
Arch., 4th ser., v. 2, p. 552.)
May 15, 1775, the town of Portsmouth passed a vote to
support the local committee of safety, and giving that committee
sole jurisdiction over any obnoxious persons who
might flee to that town for asylum; and, in view of the impending
scarcity of provisions, they advised the inhabitants
to refrain from purchasing any lamb that might be killed
before the first day of August, and from killing any lambs
before that date; and recommended the use of fresh fish
twice a week at least. (7 N. H. State Papers, 467.)
Gen. John Sullivan, in a letter to Gen. Washington dated
Oct. 29, 1775, in regard to the defences of Portsmouth
harbor, speaks his mind in regard to the Royalists of that
locality. He says:
"That infernal crew of Tories, who have laughed at the
Congress, despised the friends to liberty, endeavoured to
prevent fortifying this harbour, and strove to hurt the
credit of the Continental money, and are yet endeavouring
it, walk the streets here with impunity, and will, with a
sneer, tell the people in the streets that all our liberty-poles
will soon be converted into gallows, I must entreat your
Excellency to give some directions what to do with those
persons, as I am fully convinced that, if an engagement was
to happen, they would, with their own hands, set fire to
the town, expecting a reward from the Ministry for such
hellish service. Some who have for a long time employed
themselves in ridiculing and discouraging those who were
endeavouring to save the Town, have now turned upon me
and are now flying from one street to another, proclaiming
that you gave me no authority or license to take ships to
secure the entrance of the harbor, or did anything more
than send me here to see the Town reduced to ashes if our
enemies thought proper. Sir, I shall await your directions
respecting those villians, and see that they are strictly complied
with by your Excellency's most obedient servant.
J. S."
(Am. Archives, 4th ser. v. 3, p. 1252.)
To which Gen. Washington replied more temperately
Nov. 12, 1775:
"I therefore desire that you will delay no time in causing
the seizure of every officer of Government at Portsmouth
who have given pregnant proofs of their unfriendly disposition
to the cause we are engaged in; and when you have
seized them, take the opinion of the Provincial Congress or
Committee of Safety in what manner to dispose of them in
that Government. I do not mean that they should be
kept in close confinement. If either of those bodies should
incline to send them to any of the interior Towns, upon
their parole not to leave them till released, it will meet with
my concurrence.
"For the present, I avoid giving you the like order in
respect to the Tories in Portsmouth, but the day is not far
off when they will meet with this or a worse fate, if there
is not considerable reformation in their conduct. Of this
they may be assured."
In order to accurately ascertain the public sentiment in
regard to the Royalists we must go to some contemporary
record to which the public had free access for the registration
of its opinions. There is no such record but the newspapers.
The New Hampshire Gazette, founded at Portsmouth in
1756, and still issued weekly, now the oldest newspaper of
continuous publication in the United States, gives us a
fair idea of the popular estimate of the Tory. A few extracts
are well worth repeating.
In the issue of Sept. 21, 1776, is an article signed "Namora,
" a name which is easily seen to be "A Roman"
spelled backwards. Namora says:
"It's astonishing to see daily, the insults offered by the
Tories, and unnoticed by the Committee, in a more particular
manner, since the news of the skirmish on Long Island;
on the first report, they had their meeting and a dinner
provided to congratulate each other on the importance of
the day; and, if common fame speaks truth, they have their
particular toasts on such occasions; their significant nods
and smiles at each other as they pass by, and in their very
countenances it is as plain to be seen as the sun in its meridian.
They have the effrontery to assert that it is much
worse than reported; that it's so bad that the sons of Liberty
are afraid to let it be known, least the people should be
discouraged. Is not this intollerable? It's a matter of fact
that they have the first news on every event, and that they
propagate every intelligence they receive, taking care to
calculate it, so as to serve their own turn; it's beyond a
matter of doubt that they keep up a secret correspondence
thro' the colonies in order to comfort one another, to keep
up their sinking spirits, and to propagate falsehoods."
* * *
The following sarcastic reply to Namora was found in
the hallway of the Gazette office, and the editor printed it
the following week as a curiosity:
"Well done Namora, you talk sence, you preach liberty,
real genuine liberty, downright, alamode liberty, by G-d!
I must observe, however, that I was at first a good deal
alarmed on discovering your design of abolishing looks and
nods, those dear conveyors of our secret meaning; but when
I found you only meant significant ones, and that out of
the abundance of your great goodness and impartiality you
had confined it to tories, I was immediately reconcil'd to it,
and discovered, by the help of certain political microscopic
glasses, that it tended to the public good.
"It is, indeed, no less than alarming, that these damn'd
tories have the impudence to meet, speak, eat, and drink
together as other men do; yea, they have the effrontery, in
open violation of the laws both of God and man, to cast at
each other, as they pass, their significant looks and nods;
intolerable! and still they go unnoticed by the committee;
amazing! 'Tis a disgrace to the state to allow of such
significant looks and nods, and if the legislative body of
these states have not, in their great wisdom, already provided
a punishment adequate to the diabolical nature of so
black a crime (which hardly admits of a doubt), I think the
honorable committee of this town, if they desire that the
trumpet of fame should sound their praises to after ages,
cannot have a fairer opportunity of immortallizing their
names than by enacting laws against such treasonable and
unheard of practices; which would at once discover their
patriotic zeal for their country, their wise and god-like penetration
into the nature and cause of things, and their unerring
knowledge of mankind, who carry on daily the most
villainous conspiracies in no other language than looks and
nods; O, most shocking! What dreadful ills have not been
done by noding? I humbly think a significant look ought
to be punished by a burning out of the optics, and a nod by
severing off the offender's head from the unoffending body;
this would be going justly and regularly to work; it would
be removing causes, as the surest way to prevent effects.
" And now, Mr. Printer, in case you or any of your readers,
should be so abandoned to toryism, or so full of that brutish
feeling, humanity, as to think the above hints toward
enacting laws for the regulation of tories are too severe,
even for that infernal set of beings; or, if either of you should
be so unwise or unacquainted with the unbounded power
of committees, as to imagine that (though that same cumbersome
feeling above mentioned, could be stifled) yet
these laws are in their nature chimerical, wild, and not
reducible to practice, and consequently that my worthy
friend Namora (who to tell you the truth is no other than
a double-headed monster, bred behind a Spring hill counter)
and myself are wicked, designing devils, & foolish withall,
I hereby certify & declare to all men, that tho' I may be a
foolish devil, yet, I am neither a wicked or designing one,
and that these two last epithets, with all the detestable
ideas attending them, are only applied to my double-headed
friend; this being only a kind of explanatory supplement to
this piece, I am
(signed) What you will"
In the Gazette of Jan. 14, 1777, appeared another expression
of opinion entitled
'To the Public.
"Is it not amazing, astonishing to every thinking mind
at this Period, when nothing but Rapine and Murder can
Satiate the Lust of those Infernal Devils sent among us
by the Infamous Tyrant of Britain, that there can still be
found a single Person who yet retains that odious name of a
Tory, when they see (notwithstanding their much boasted
Loyalty) their wives & Daughters are not exempt from the
Ravaging Cruelties of those Wretches, any more than those
of the Rebels (so called); by which Treatment alone, (though
void of all Principle) one might reasonably expect it would
exasperate and Excite them to such a degree of Resentment
and Revenge, that all their pretended Loyalty would instantly
vanish, and with Heart and Hand join their much
Injured Country-men in sheathing their Swords in the
Breasts of such Brutal Animals; which would afford much
more consolation to a noble Mind than to sit down, tamely
submitting to the Murderous Decrees issued by a vile. Despotic
Tyrant, to be executed by the very dregs of H-ll.
Oh! it makes my very blood boil with Indignation at the
thoughts of such horrid Deeds, and much more when I
reflect that there are many such shameful Wretches among
us at this late Hour, that would sell their God, their Country,
their Wives, their Children, and all that is near and dear to
them. Pray, what is the reward due to such Monsters?
Do they deserve the Lenity shown them by their Townsmen?
Don't they rather deserve the halter? Nay, is not even
that too good for them? Can any infliction of Punishment
(though ever so severe) be called too Cruel? Upon the
whole, what ought to be done in order to Rid us of such
Vermin? Suppose I should suggest a mode, and that is to
provide some kind of a Bark, and, after putting on board
some Provisions, Set them a Drift, & make it death for any
of them ever to land on my Part of the American Shore
that is Inhabited by Freemen, which in my opinion would
be the best and most effectual method, and much milder
than such Slaves could reasonably expect.
(Signed) An Enemy to Tories."
May 31, 1777, the Gazette editorially suggested that
they be "taken up, sent and kept under a Strong Guard
(at their own expense, so far as their Estates will go), in
some of the New Townships, there to continue during the
War."
Feb. 18, 1777, the Gazette printed
"A Whisper to the Folks called Tories."
As you have given Bonds not to disturb the Peace of
the Town, nor do anything directly or indirectly against
the American Cause, would advise, that you keep in your
own Houses as much as possible, and not assemble together
in the Street or elsewhere in too great a number, as that
will be look'd upon as an indirect Method taken against
the public Good, and subject your Persons to insults. It
would also be prudent for those who desire to preserve
the Name of staunch Whigs, not to join their Assemblies
so frequently in the open Streets, as that gives a sanction
to their evil Doings. The Court has acquited them on
conditions, therefore pass them with silent contempt, and
let their own guilty reflections be their Punishment. It
would also be proper that whifling Whigs should be distinguished,
and assemble together, as their mixing with either
of the above is taking an unfair Advantage, and
consequently brings a Reflection on both Parties, as they must
be considered by the Public a Species beneath the Notice
of either Class."
July 19, 1777, the House of Representatives appointed a
committee to report some method for taking firearms from
such persons in the State as refused to take up arms against
the enemies of the American States. The same day the
committee recommended that the colonels of the several
regiments of militia be empowered to disarm the disaffected
persons, and that the arms so taken be appraised by two
disinterested men, and be paid for unless returned. The
recommendation was adopted, but we find no record of
further action on this plan, although here and there a few
Royalists were disarmed by local committees of safety.
A curious incident of the time is the suspicion of the
Quakers. Aug. 28, 1777, the Federal Congress stated that
there was reason to believe that Quakers in different States
were carrying on a treasonable correspondence, and recommended
that the States investigate the matter by seizing
and examining their records and papers, and that any documents
of a political nature so found be forwarded to Congress.
November 8 following the New Hampshire House of
Representatives appointed a committee to apply to clerks
of the Quaker societies in Dover, Hampton Falls, Seabrook,
Brentwood, Weare, and other towns for the privilege of
examining their records, and gave the committee power
to break and enter in case access was refused. There is no
evidence on record that any incriminating documents were
found among the Quakers of New Hampshire.
Officially it was intended from the beginning that there
should be no persecution of Royalists, and no action of any
kind against them except by due process of law. June 18,
1776, the Federal Congress resolved "that no man in these
colonies charged with being a Tory, or unfriendly to the
cause of American liberty, be injured in his person or
property, or in any manner whatever disturbed, unless the
proceeding against him be founded on an order of this
Congress, or the assembly, convention, council, or
committee of safety of the colony, or committee of inspection
and observation of the district where he resides; provided
that this resolution shall not prevent the apprehending
any person found in the commission of some act destructive
of American liberty, or justly suspected of a design to commit
such act, and intending to escape, and bringing such person
before proper authority for examination and trial."
January 17, 1777, the New Hampshire House of Representatives
passed a resolution giving all disaffected persons
three months in which to leave the State unmolested, with
their families and effects, with the privilege of selling their
property before departure; and requiring them to register
their intentions with the selectmen of their respective towns
thirty days before leaving; and these registrations were to
be transmitted to the Secretary of State. This did not
become operative as law, the Council neglecting to concur,
but it is valuable as showing the fair and reasonable intentions
of the representative body of the people. The same
day the Council passed an act defining treason and misprision
of treason, and providing a penalty of death without
benefit of clergy; and an act for punishing lesser offences of
a treasonable nature, such as discouraging enlistments,
speaking against the cause of the States, and spreading
false reports.
June 19, 1777, an act was passed authorizing the Committee
of Safety to issue warrants to sheriffs, deputy-sheriffs,
or any other person, for the commitment to jail of "any
person whom the said Committee of Safety shall deem the
Safety of the Common Wealth requires should be restrained
of his personal Liberty, or whose Enlargement within this
state is dangerous thereto," there to remain without bail
until discharged by order of the committee or the General
Court; and the committee was given power of examination
and trial in such cases.
November 29 an act was passed to prevent the transfer
of property by persons apprehended on suspicion, and for
securing the lands of those who had gone over to the enemy,
or might do so, and of those who resided in Great Britain.
These acts were all preliminary, and show the gradual
development of a hostile sentiment in the legislature and
among the people.
The Proscription Act, or act of banishment, was passed
Nov. 19, 1778, and bore the title "An act to prevent the
return to this state of certain persons therein named, and of
others who have left or shall leave this state, or either of the
United States of America, and have joined or shall join the
enemies thereof." Seventy-six men are named in the act,
first of whom was Gov. John Wentworth. and they are
described as having left this State and joined the enemies
thereof, "thereby not only basely deserting the cause of
liberty and depriving these states of their personal services
at a time when they ought to have afforded their utmost
assistance in defending the same against the invasions of a
cruel enemy, but abetting the cause of tyranny, and manifesting
an enimical disposition to said states, and a design
to aid the enemies thereof in their wicked purposes."
An analysis of this list of 76 outlawed Royalists is interesting,
especially if we may consider it as fairly representative
of the whole body of Royalists in New Hampshire,
fairly indicative of the classes and the proportions of each
that we may find in the entire number. In this list we find
30 "Esquires" or gentlemen (using social distinctions of that
time rather than this), 1 military officer, 5 mariners, 4 physicians,
8 merchants, 5 traders, 19 yeomen or farmers, 1 rope-maker,
1 post-rider, 1 printer, and 1 clerk or minister.
Thirty-three of these were citizens of Portsmouth; Londonderry
and Dunbarton had 6 each, Keene 5, Charlestown
4, Hollis 3, Newmarket, Amherst, Alstead and Hinsdale, 4
each, and Pembroke, Exeter, Concord, Merrimack. New
Ipswich, Francestown, Peterborough, Nelson, Winchester.
Rindge, and Claremont 1 each.
The geographical distribution covers very nearly the
whole of the State that was under settlement at that time,
and seems to defy the application of any particular theory
of locality. It extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Connecticut River, and from the Massachusetts line to
Claremont on the north. There was no large number in
any one town except Portsmouth, which held nearly half
the entire list. This fact was perfectly natural to the place
which had been the seat of the Royal government for nearly
a century. From a social point of view it will be noticed
that 30 of the 76 belonged to the class of gentlemen, and 5
others were of the learned professions. The penalty provided
in the act for a voluntary return to the State was for
a first offense transportation to British territory, and for
a second offense death.
The Confiscation Act followed eight days later, or Nov.
28, 1778, and in it were named 25 of those included in the
Proscription Act, and three others not previously mentioned.
They were described as men who "have, since the
commencement of hostilities between Great Britain and the
United States of America, left this and the other United
States, and gone over to and joined the enemys thereof, and
have, to the utmost of their power, aided, abetted, and
assisted the said enemys in their cruel designs of wresting
from the good people of said states their Libertys, civil and
religious, and of taking from them their property, and converting
the same to the use of their said enemys." All
their property in New Hampshire was declared forfeited to
the use of the State.
It will be noticed that the Proscription Act banished
those who had left the state of their abode and joined the
enemy, whether in the United Colonies or elsewhere; but
the Confiscation Act seized the estates of those only who
had departed from the country, sought refuge on British
soil, and become perniciously active in opposition to the
Revolutionary government. This will account for the
difference in numbers affected by those respective acts.
Belknap says "In these acts no distinction was made
between those persons who had withdrawn themselves from
the state by a sense of their duty; those who were, in fact,
British subjects, but occasionally resident here; those who
had absconded through timidity; and those who had committed
crimes against express law, and had fled from justice.
No conditional offer of pardon was made; no time was
allowed for any to return and enter into the service of the
country; but the whole were put indiscriminately into one
black-list, and stigmatised as having basely deserted the
cause of liberty and manifested a disposition inimical to the
State, and a design to aid its enemies in their wicked purposes."
Confiscated estates aggregated a large sum in original
value, but were greatly diminished by a period of bad
management and neglect while in the hands of trustees.
These values, like all others, were also affected by the almost
ruinous depreciation of paper money, and the net income
to the State from all confiscated property was very small.
It is not now necessary to argue the apparent conflict of
these laws with the constitutional principle that no part of
a man's property shall be taken from him without his consent,
or due process of law. The constitution of 1776,
which was in effect at the time of the passage of these laws,
was a temporary enactment, intended, as stated in the preamble,
to continue only "during the present unhappy and
unnatural contest with Great Britain." It was a mere
skeleton of a form of government, and it stood on a preamble
and not a bill of rights. Government under it was
provisional, and there was no constitutional government in
New Hampshire until June, 1784, when our permanent constitution
went into operation.
In his opinion in Dow v. Railroad, 67 N. H. 1, Judge
Doe says: "Under the non-legislative reign of Parliament,
and the pre-constitutional government of this State, there
was no limit of governmental power to be decided or considered
by the court. The acts of banishment and confiscation,
passed and enforced by the provisional government
of the Revolution, were as valid as the habeas corpus act."
There was, then, no bar to the passage and execution of these
laws by a government whose power had no constitutional
limitations, but the act of confiscation was not in accord
with the principle of the inviolability of private property
which the fathers wished to embody in the constitution
adopted in 1783; and at that time these acts were in force,
and many confiscated estates were still in the process of
settlement by the courts. In order, therefore, to re-affirm,
establish, and definitely constitutionalize these acts, it was
provided in the constitution that "nothing herein contained,
when compared with the twenty-third article in the bill of
rights [retroactive legislation], shall be construed to affect
the laws already made respecting the persons or estates of
absentees." This subject has been discussed by the court
in Opinion of the Justices, 66 N. H. 629; Orr v. Quimby,
54 N. H. 591; Dow v. Railroad, 67 N. H. 1; State v. Express
Co., 60 N. H. 219, and in other cases.
In 1777 the air was full of tales of Royalist plots in
various parts of the State for doing all sorts of monstrous
things. The Committee of Safety, writing to the delegates
in Congress May 10, announced the discovery of several
combinations in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties and
the western parts of Massachusetts; a plan for organizing,
arming, and joining the enemy; a hogshead of entrenching
tools hidden under a barn in Hollis; and unusually large
supplies of liquors, provisions, and arms in the vicinity of
Groton, Massachusetts. The committee adds "Interesting
Matters are opening, and it is probable that all our
Gaols will soon be filled with these more than monsters
in the Shape of men, who would wreck there Native Country
in hopes to share some of the Plunder."
In January, 1777, on the occasion of sending some prisoners
of war to Rhode Island, Timothy Walker, Jr., of
Concord wrote to Col. Nicholas Gilman warning him that it
was "vehemently suspected that our Tory Gentry in this
part of the Country" were designing to send information
to Howe's army by the prisoners. The Committee of
Safety instructed Capt. John Haven, in command of the
guard, to search the prisoners with the utmost care, and
after examination to allow no man to address or approach
them before embarkation.
In September the Committee of Safety in Plymouth reported
the discovery of a suspected Royalist meeting.
They said "The Place and some Persons being Suspected,
a Secret Spy was Sent out in order to make Discovery, who
upon Return Reports That at & near the House of Brion
Sweeneys Northerly of Great Squam Pond in the Town of
Newholderness (a place very remote from any other humane
Settlement) was discovered Sundry Persons who by their
number & Dress did not appear to be the proper Inhabitants
of that place (no man in that family being Grown up but
Sweeny himself)."
In Claremont were a considerable number of genuine
Royalists, men who sincerely believed the colonies were
wrong, and who were willing to aid the King's forces to the
extent of their ability, even at some risk of discovery and
its well-known consequences. There never was in New
Hampshire any organization of Royalists, either for the
purpose of armed resistance to the Revolutionists, or for
giving indirect aid to the Crown. In some States, however,
notably New York, and consequently Vermont, because of
the powerful New York influences which prevailed through
all the territory between the Connecticut and the Hudson
Rivers, the Royalists were numerous and strong enough
to organize in various ways and for various purposes.
Claremont may have been affected by a combination of
two circumstances, proximity to a locality in which Royalists
were bold, separated only by the span of the river, and
the existence within its borders of an organized parish of
the Church of England, whose members, though in the
minority, were active and ardent in their support of the
little church they had planted so far up in the frontier wilderness.
To these men, strong in their belief in a united
church and state, any attack on the body politic of England
was almost in the same degree an attack on the church.
There was in Claremont a hiding place for Royalists,
one of a chain of rendezvous extending from New York to
Canada. It was known as Tory Hole, and was protected
on three sides by a swamp covered by a thick growth of
alders, and on the fourth side by a steep bank about 30
feet high. Here meetings were held in safety for a long
time, and travellers were sheltered and fed and passed on
their journey. The existence of such a resort was long
suspected by the Revolutionary party, but it was not discovered
until late in the year 1780. Two men who were
found there escaped by swimming across the Connecticut
River and taking refuge on the top of Ascutney Mountain,
where they were captured while asleep; and, being armed,
were held as prisoners of war, sent to Boston, and afterwards
exchanged.
In December, 1775, twenty-five men of Claremont were
brought before a joint committee of safety from the towns
of Claremont, Hanover, Lebanon and Cornish for examination,
being suspected of Royalism. Among them were Rev.
Ranna Cossitt, rector of the church, and Samuel Cole,
schoolmaster and catechist under him, and most of the
others were members of Mr. Cossitt's church. Mr. Cossitt,
on examination, said "I believe the American Colonies, in
their dispute with Great Britain, which has now come to
blood, are unjust, but will not take up arms either against
the King or country, as my office and circumstances are
such that I am not obliged thereto. I mean to be on the
side of the administration, and I had as leave any person
should call me a damned Tory as not, and take it as an
affront if people don't call me a Tory, for I verily believe
the British troops will overcome by the greatness of their
power and justice of their cause."
The joint committee disarmed all the persons examined,
and recommended to the Provincial Congress that Capt.
Benjamin Sumner, Samuel Cole, and Rev. Ranna Cossitt,
as chief advisers and dictators, be placed in confinement.
They were brought to trial in Charlestown April 10, 1776,
and were sentenced to be confined to the town limits of
Claremont until the close of the war unless they promised
good behavior, Capt. Sumner being required to give
bonds instead of promises for his release. They were
forbidden to be seen together except at public worship,
but Mr. Cossitt was allowed such liberty as was necessary
for the performance of his ministerial office in preaching,
baptizing, and visiting the sick.
Col. John Peters wrote from Quebec July 20, 1778, to his
brother, Rev. Samuel Peters, in London, as follows:
"Rev. Dr. Wheelock, President of Dartmouth College
in New Hampshire, in conjunction with Deacon Bayley,
Mr. Morey, and Mr. Hurd, all justices of the peace, put an
end to the Church of England in this state so early as 1775.
They seized me, Capt. Peters, and all the judges of Cumberland
and Gloucester, the Rev. Mr. Cossitt and Mr. Cole,
and all the church people for 200 miles up the river and
confined us in close gaols, after beating and drawing us
through water and mud. Here we lay some time, and were
to continue in prison until we abjured the King and signed
the league and covenant. Many died, one of which was
Capt. Peter's son. We were removed from the gaol and
confined in private houses at our own expense. Capt.
Peters and myself were guarded by twelve rebel soldiers
while sick in bed, and we paid dearly for this honor; and
others fared in like manner. I soon recovered from my indisposition,
and took the first opportunity and fled to
Canada, leaving Cossitt, Cole, Peters, Willis, Porter, Sumner,
Paptin, etc., in close confinement where they had misery,
insults, and sickness enough. My flight was in 1776, since
which my family arrived at Montreal, and inform me that
many prisoners died; that Capt. Peters had been tried by
court martial and ordered to be shot for refusing to lead his
company against the King's troops. He was afterwards
reprieved but still in gaol, and that he was ruined both in
health and property; that Cossitt and Cole were alive when
they came away, but were under confinement, and had more
insults than any of the loyalists, because they had been
servants of the Society1 which, under pretense (as the rebels
say) of propagating religion, had propagated loyalty, in
opposition to the liberties of America."
Mr. Cossitt himself wrote from New York June 6, 1779,
to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel: "I arrived in this city last Sunday by permission,
with a flag, and am to return in a few days. I trust the
Society cannot be unacquainted with the persecution the
loyalists have endured in New England. I have been, by
the committee, confined as a prisoner in the town of Claremont
ever since the 12th of April, 1775, yet God has preserved
my life from the people. I have constantly kept up
public service, without any omissions, for the King and
royal family, and likewise made use of the prayer for the
high court of parliament, and the prayer to be used in time of
war and tumults; have administered the Lord's Supper on
every first Sunday in the month, except two Sundays that
we could not procure any wine. The numbers of my
parishoners and communicants in Claremont are increased,
but I have been cruelly distressed with fines for refusing
entirely to fight against the King. In sundry places
where I used to officiate, the church people are all dwindled
away. Some have fled to the King's army for protection,
some were banished, and many died."
Mr. Cossitt remained at his post in Claremont until 1785,
when he was sent as a missionary by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel to Sidney, Cape Breton. He
died there in 1815.
Rev. Dr. Hubbard, sometime rector of Trinity church,
Claremont, in his centennial address of 1871, said
"We can hardly estimate aright at this distant day, and
in the midst of circumstances so greatly changed, the position
in which churchmen found themselves at the breaking
out of the Revolutionary war. The period of religious toleration
had not arrived, and the spirit of the ancient contests
which had raged for centuries in the Old World, and
in a measure spent their force, was here revived in all its
intense bigotry and malignity. It was not the fear of such
men as Samuel Cole and Ranna Cossitt, in a civil point of
view, that led to their cruel persecution and abuse. Doubtless
they were loyal to the government, and most warmly
attached to the Church of England. But they were
peaceable, law-abiding men. There was no treachery or
sedition in them. Their own principles taught them to
obey the powers that be. While the great struggle was
going on they could not be hired or driven to take up arms
against the King; neither would they take up arms, nor
plot nor conspire against the lives and happiness of their
fellow-citizens. They desired to remain quiet and await
the decision of Providence. And when that decision came,
if it were adverse to their hopes, they would be as faithful
and obedient to the new government as they had been to
the old."
The only other Protestant Episcopal Church in New
Hampshire at this time was Queen's Chapel of Portsmouth,
now called St. John's church. Its rector was Rev. Arthur
Browne, a faithful and beloved priest and a man of spotless
character. His attitude during the war was that of an
absolute neutral. There is no record of any charge or
suspicion against him. His son-in-law, however, Major
Robert Rogers, commander of Rogers's Rangers in the
French and Indian wars, was one of the most active Royalists,
as well as one of the most famous soldiers of New
England.
In January, 1777, fifteen citizens of Portsmouth were
arrested by the town committee of safety on suspicion, and
sent to the state committee at Exeter under guard. Among
them were James Sheafe, Jonathan Warner, Peter and
John Peirce, Isaac Rindge, and Nathaniel Treadwell, members
of some of the most respected and influential families
of Portsmouth in the days of the province. Among them,
also, was John Stavers, keeper of the Earl of Halifax inn, a
tavern which had been a favorite resort of the officers of
the provincial government and of travellers from England.
The place was naturally held in suspicion by the Sons of
Liberty, and was once raided and nearly reduced to ruins.
It was commonly thought that Royalist meetings were held
there, and many threats were made against the house and
its keeper. It is quite probable that these fifteen suspected
persons, who seem to have been all gathered in at once, and
among whom was the inn-keeper himself, were in
attendance upon one of these meetings when arrested. Twelve of
them were released under bonds of £500 each "not to say or
do anything directly or Indirectly in anywise contrary
or in Opposition to the American Cause now contending
for, * * * or the United States of America for & during
ye Term of one year next coming, and further advise that
they be very careful and cautious in these times of jealousy
& danger, in giving any occasion of mistrust to any person
Whatsomever of their dissatisfaction to the common cause.
The Committee likewise recommend that People of every
rank and denomination in this State be careful in detecting
all persons speaking or conspiring against this or any of the
United American States, and cause them to be prosecuted
according to the Laws made & published for that purpose."
So many Royalists were committed to jail that an understanding
of the entire subject cannot be complete without a
knowledge of the character of the places in which they were
confined. Each county had its jail, and Rockingham had
two, one at Portsmouth, old, insecure, and not much used,
and one at Exeter. The records preserve to our use a very
good description of the Hillsborough county jail at Amherst,
second only to that at Exeter in importance during the
Revolution. Probably the other jails did not greatly differ
from this in the main points of construction.
Built in 1772, it was 34 feet long, 26 feet wide, and 17 feet
high, divided into two stories, probably 9 feet and 8 feet
respectively. There were four rooms for the prisoners, each
11 feet square, two on each floor, but the jail-keeper's rooms
were 14 feet long. The entry was 7 feet wide, opening into
the jailer's apartments on one side, and the prisoner's
quarters on the other. There was no cellar except under
the end of the building occupied by the jailer. The posts,
sills, and plates were of white oak, and the rest of the timber
was chestnut, and the appropriation for the entire work
was £200. The fence was 8 feet high, well spiked, and
stood 10 feet from the building on all sides. The new jail
was occupied in October of the same year, and at the same
time an addition 18 feet in length was ordered to be built
on the jailer's end of the building. On the 5th of November
a stove for use in the prison was voted by the court of
general sessions. Later in the month the sheriff protested
that the jail was not secure, and it was ordered that the
prisoners' rooms be lathed and plastered, and that iron
bars, 3 inches apart, be set in the window of the lower north
room. But laths and plaster were not effective in preventing
escapes, and in August, 1773, two good locks and window
shutters for the same room were provided. Joseph Kelley,
who had escaped once and threatened to do so again, was
put in chains. In November even the doors had to be
fastened, and two locks and a padlock were ordered; the
fence, also, was insufficient, and the court ordered it to be
built 12 feet high and moved to 20 feet from the west and
north sides of the building. Even this failed to prevent communication
with the prisoners from the outside. In December,
1774, the sheriff went to the court in despair, and
represented that his locks and hinges were all broken, many
of the doors smashed, and that a large hole was cut through
the floor in the north room, and that all his prisoners were
gone. The court responded with orders for the repair of the
building in the best and strongest possible manner, but
two years later, fourteen New York Royalists confined there
broke jail and escaped in one night.
In 1777, statements being made to the Committee of
Safety that the prisoners in Exeter jail had become very
sickly on account of bad air, the keeper of the jail, Capt.
Simeon Ladd, was instructed July 12 to permit the prisoners,
one half the number at a time, to come out of close
confinement into the two front chambers and to remain
there under double guard from 6 o'clock in the morning until
6 o'clock in the afternoon. A fire was allowed in the lower
jail from Dec. 13, 1777, to May 10, 1778, and the allowance
of wood was half a cord a week. Apparently no fire was
kept on the second floor. The following winter, however,
the committee was more merciful, and allowed fires both
up-stairs and down, and ordered them to be lighted as early
as Nov. 4. Complaints from the prisoners of sickness on
account of foul air, unsanitary conditions, and vermin were
very numerous.
The number of Royalists actually confined in prison was
far exceeded by those sentenced to certain limitations. The
common penalty in the less serious cases was confinement to
the bounds of the town in which the defendant lived. Sometimes
this restriction was enlarged to include an adjoining
town or two, and occasionally the whole county; and some
were forbidden to leave their estates except to attend public
worship.
The first man in New Hampshire to suffer for his suspected
Royalist tendencies was Benjamin Thompson of Concord,
afterwards Count Rumford, who was driven from his natural
allegiance to the colonies to seek protection within the
British lines by continued unreasonable persecution, inspired
and promoted by private jealousy and malice. Mr.
Thompson had come from Woburn, Massachusetts, his
native town, to Concord, New Hampshire, in 1772 to teach
school. He had not a college education, but was possessed
of a natural love for art. music, and especially for natural
science. Before he had been in Concord six months he
married Sarah, widow of Benjamin Rolfe and daughter
of Rev. Timothy Walker, a woman of many charms, for she
had youth, beauty, family, and the largest and finest estate
in town. Immediately after his marriage he became acquainted
with Gov. Wentworth, and found in him a man of
charming manners, culture, wealth, and a taste for science
which enabled them at once to meet on common ground.
Mr. Thompson's errand to the Governor was to propose a
survey of the White Mountains, and to his great delight the
Governor not only thought well of the plan but offered the
loan of some valuable instruments and books he had in his
house at Wolfeborough, and proposed to go with the party
himself if public business should allow. It is not strange
that such flattering interest and attentions from the Royal
Governor to the boy, for he was then only 20 years old,
secured his enthusiastic and devoted admiration. The
Governor's friendship was further manifested in 1773, when
he gave Mr. Thompson a major's commission in a regiment
of militia, and so placed him in a position of command over
many officers and men of twice his age, and infinitely his
superior in military knowledge and experience. It is a fair
assumption that at his age his mind was fully occupied with
his recent triumphs, his marriage and social position, his
friendship with the Governor, and his military rank, all
accomplished within about a year, to the exclusion of public
affairs, in which he had never participated nor shown any
particular interest. He did not see the intensity of the
Revolutionary feeling among the people about him, nor was
his knowledge of and experience with human nature sufficient
to show him the normal result of an inordinate social
attachment to the chief executive officer of an unpopular
government. The jealousy and suspicion thus aroused were
probably the primary cause of the hostile acts which soon
followed. There was another contributing cause, but it was
not of sufficient importance to have caused him more than
the temporary inconvenience which a hundred others suffered
under unjust suspicions which were soon cleared
away. After his marriage Major Thompson became, of
necessity, a farmer, and employed among others two men
who afterwards proved to be deserters from the British
army, desirous of returning to their duties but restrained by
fear of the penalties for their crime. They were sent back
to Boston by Major Thompson with a letter to Gen. Gage
asking that they be pardoned and restored to their duties.
Nothing else appears upon which any suspicion of his
political principles could be based. But public opinion
sometimes seems to need very little tangible foundation, and
it was unalterably set against him. Envy, hatred, malice,
and all uncharitableness pursued him from all sides. There
was nothing wrong in particular, but he was in that position
which is most nearly hopeless in practical politics; he was
"in wrong." In the summer of 1774 he was summoned
before a committee of the citizens of Concord on the charge
of being unfriendly to American liberty. No proof was
found, he denied the accusation, and was discharged. But
the hostility of his neighbors continued to increase, and in
November, by the advice and assistance of his brother-in-law.
Judge Timothy Walker, he left his wife and child and
secretly went back to Woburn, whence he wrote to his
father-in-law Dec. 24:
"Reverend Sir. The time and circumstances of my leaving
the town of Concord have, no doubt, given you great
uneasiness, for which I am extremely sorry. Nothing
short of the most threatening danger could have induced
me to leave my friends and family; but when I learned
from persons of undoubted veracity, and those whose
friendship I could not suspect, that my situation was reduced
to this dreadful extremity, I thought it absolutely
necessary to abscond for a while, and seek a friendly asylum
in some distant part.
"Fear of miscarriage prevents my giving a more particular
account of this affair; but this you may rely and depend
upon, that I never did, nor (let my treatment be what it
will) ever will do any action that may have the most distant
tendency to injure the true interest of this my native
country. * * *
"The plan against me was deeply laid, and the people
of Concord were not the only ones that were engaged in
it. But others, to the distance of twenty miles, were
extremely officious on this occasion. My persecution
was determined on, and my flight unavoidable. And had
I not taken the opportunity to leave the town the moment
I did, another morning had effectually cut off my retreat."
January 11, 1775, he wrote in reply to Parson Walker's
letter urging him to return to Concord, * * * "As to
any concessions that I could make, I fear that it would
be of no consequence, for I cannot possibly, with a clear
conscience, confess myself guilty of doing anything to
the disadvantage of this country, but quite the reverse." * * *
But peace was not in Woburn. He was arrested there
May 15, 1775, on the same indefinite charges. Again no
proof was produced, and he was discharged. This second
prosecution was undoubtedly instigated by. reports from
Concord, or from New Hampshire soldiers at Cambridge.
Smarting under prosecution which his conscience told him
was groundless, and discouraged by its persistence, he
turned to the camp of Washington's army at Cambridge in
the hope that his military rank might be recognized, and
that he might be given a command in the American army
which would reinstate him in public favor. Unsuccessful
in this he endeavored to establish himself in the business
of supplying non-commissioned officers' epaulets for the
army, and again he found hostile influences too powerful
for him to overcome. In his letter of August 14 he wrote
"I have been driven from the camp by the clamours of the
New Hampshire people." There was no other way to turn
for justice. Civil life and the military camp alike were
permeated with hostility towards him, and on the 13th of
October, 1775, he left Woburn in company with his stepbrother,
and took refuge on board the British frigate
Scarborough in the harbor of Newport, a Royalist by compulsion
of the Revolutionists.
As to the real allegiance of his heart and mind, I present
these extracts from his letter of Aug. 14, 1775, to Rev.
Timothy Walker, his wife's father:
* * * "I am not so thoroughly convinced that my
leaving the town of Concord was wrong (considering the
circumstances at the time) as I am that it was wrong in me
to do it without your knowledge or advice. This, Sir, is a
step which I have always repented, and for which I am
now sincerely and heartily sorry, and ask your forgiveness. * * *
"I was peculiarly happy in having my brother Walker's
approbation of my conduct. But notwithstanding he
thought me innocent, yet he dared not appear in my behalf;
he saw the current was against me, and was afraid to interfere. * * *
"As to my being instrumental in the return of some
deserters by procuring them a pardon, I freely acknowledge
that I was. But will you give me leave to say that what I
did was done from principles the most unexceptionable, the
most disinterested, a sincere desire to serve my King and
country, and from motives of pity to those unfortunate
wretches who had deserted the service to which they had
voluntarily and solemnly tied themselves, and to which
they were desirous of returning. * * *
"But as to * * * maintaining a long and expensive
correspondence with G(overno)r W(entwor)th or a suspicious
correspondence, to say the least, with G(overno)rs
W(entwor)th and G(ag)e, I would beg leave to observe that,
at the time Governor Wentworth first honored me with his
notice, it was at a time when he was as high in the esteem of
his people in general as was any Governor in America, at a
time when even Mr. Sullivan was proud to be thought his
friend. * * *
"'Tis true, Sir, I always thought myself honored with
his friendship, and was even fond of a correspondence with
him, a correspondence which was purely private and
friendly, and not political, and for which I cannot find it in
my heart to either express my sorrow or ask forgiveness
of the public.
"As to my maintaining a correspondence with Governor
Gage, this part of the charge is entirely without foundation,
as I never received a letter from him in my life; nor did I
ever write him one, except about half a dozen lines which
I sent him just before I left Concord may be called a letter,
and which contained no intelligence, nor anything of a
public nature, but was only to desire that the soldiers who
returned from Concord might be ordered not to inform any
person by whose intercession their pardon was granted
them. * * *
"And notwithstanding I have the tenderest regard for
my wife and family and really believe I have an equal return
of love and affection from them; though I feel the
keenest distress at the thoughts of what Mrs. Thompson and
my parents and friends will suffer on my account; and
though I foresee and realize the distress, poverty, and wretchedness
that must unavoidably attend my pilgrimage in
unknown lands, destitute of fortune, friends, and acquaintances,
yet all these evils appear to me more tolerable than
the treatment which I meet with from the hands of mine
ungrateful countrymen."
"I must also beg a continuance of your prayers for me,
that my present afflictions may have a suitable impression
on my mind, and that in due time I may be extricated out of
all my troubles. That this may be the case, that the happy
time may soon come when I may return to my family in
peace and safety, and when every individual in America
may sit down under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree,
and have none to make him afraid, is the constant and
devout wish of
Your dutiful and affectionate son
Benjn Thompson."
His talents were lost to America at a time when they were
most needed. His genius for organization was driven to a
foreign soil when it should have been devoted to the establishment
of a new government in the land of his birth;
and all this because a few of his friends and relatives in
Concord did not have the courage to stand with him, face
his jealous accusers, and declare his innocence in accordance
with their belief. As a people and as individuals we can
never cease to regret that so unworthy motives as jealousy
and suspicion deprived America in her time of need of the
services of the greatest social scientist of his day, founder
of a new school of social economy that taught the world
how to care for the poor by teaching the poor how to care for
themselves, the vital principles of which endure to this day.
His genius was officially recognized by the United States
government in an invitation in 1799 to return to America
and organize the Military Academy at West Point, and he
was at the same time offered the commission of inspector-general
of artillery in the United States army. This invitation
he was obliged to decline on account of his official
obligations to the Bavarian government, and his labors in
the founding of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
In appreciation of the invitation he left, by his will, all his
books, plans, and designs relating to military affairs to the
United States Military Academy.
In 1774, when Gen. Gage found quarters lacking for his
troops in Boston, and sought to provide for his men by building
new barracks, he was much embarrassed by the fact
that the carpenters of Boston and vicinity had joined the
American forces and withdrawn from the city. Consequently
he was obliged to send into the country for the
necessary skilled workmen. Gov. John Wentworth, in a
letter to the Earl of Dartmouth dated Nov. 15, 1774, says:
"General Gage having desired me to furnish some carpenters
to build and prepare quarters for his Majesty's troops in
Boston, the carpenters there being withdrawn, and the
service much distressed; I immediately engaged and sent
him a party of able men, which arrived to the General, and
are very useful."
This was in October, 1774, and the news of the sending of
the artificers to Boston soon spread abroad. Nicholas
Austin of Middleton was suspected of being an agent of the
Governor in engaging and forwarding the carpenters. The
muster of militia which was held in Rochester the first week
in November afforded an opportunity for these rumors and
suspicions to crystallize, and the Sons of Liberty proposed
to visit Mr. Austin in a body and ascertain the truth. But
some of the cooler and more conservative among them, fearing
hasty and violent action if this plan should be carried
out by the people in their excitement, proposed that Mr.
Austin be requested to meet the Sons of Liberty at some
time and place to be agreed upon. Wise counsel prevailed,
and the latter plan was adopted. The Rochester committee
of correspondence notified Mr. Austin to meet them at the
house of Stephen Wentworth, innholder, in Rochester on
the following Tuesday, Nov. 8.
On the day appointed a large concourse of the people
of Rochester and the neighboring towns met to hear the
case. Mr. Austin appeared, and after taking oath before
John Plummer, Esq., gave a rather lame statement of his
part in the affair. He testified that he spoke to only four
of the men hired for Gen. Gage, and told them to go to Gov.
Wentworth and speak to him; that he did not tell the men
they were to go to Boston, although he suspected that to be
the case from a remark the Governor had made; that the
Governor told him the people would be dissatisfied when the
affair became known, but, thinking it would be best, he had
proceeded; that he told the men the general of the army would
pay them their wages.
Mr. Austin was then forced to his knees in full view of the
assembly, and compelled to sign and repeat the following
confession and declaration:
"Before this Company I confess I have been aiding and
assisting in sending men to Boston to build Barracks for the
Soldiers to live in, at which you have Reason justly to be
offended, which I am sorry for, and humbly ask your Forgiveness,
and I do affirm that for the future I never will be
aiding or assisting in any Wise whatever in Act or Deed
contrary to the Constitution of the Country, as Witness,
my hand."
And he was not, for no record of any further action
against him is found. He represented Wakefield, Middleton,
and Effingham in the convention to consider the
Federal constitution in 1788, and was a member of the
House of Representatives the same year.
Eleazer Russell, long time postmaster of New Hampshire
and naval officer of the port of Portsmouth, read the Association
Test literally as an obligation to do active service,
for which he was physically incapacitated. He also had a
strong element of Quakerism in his character, and a sense of
honor which would not allow him to do a popular deed in violation
of his moral principles. He explained his refusal to
sign the Association Test in a letter to Meshech Weare, chairman
of the Committee of Safety, Aug. 17, 1776, in which he
said:
"On the 4th day of May last, Coll Wentworth, of the
Committee for the Town of Portsmouth, brot me the Association
to Subscribe, At a time I was so ill as to be
incapable of any thing. Upon growing better, I thot largely
of the matter, and, finding my mind perplex'd, wrote him
on the Subject; which letter, at my request, he consented
to lay before the Honorable Committee of Safety.
"Till yesterday I never knew but the Association paper,
with my letter, had been in the Committees hands for more
than two months: And now I find myself bound by every
principle of Honor, Duty, and gratitude to enlarge upon the
Affair.
"It was, and is, meerly to secure the morality of my mind
that I was reluctant to put my name to it — Solemnly to
bind my-self to the performance of what nature & necessity
rendered impossible, I started at the thot of. And, tho my
health is mended, So wreckd Are my nerves that I could
not do one hours Military Duty to Save my life.
"The Article of shedding human blood, in me, is not a
humor, but a principle — not an evasion, but a fact. It was
received in early life, and has 'Grown with my growth &
Strengthend with my Strength' — not a partiality for
British more than Savage blood. For, al circumstances considered,
I think the latter more innocent than the former.
"From the first Injuries done America by Great-Britain,
my thots took fire on the Subject; And have been conceived
& uttered, in one unvaried Strain, To the highest personage
and down to the meanest enemy, without hesitation or
reserve, So that I can challenge all mankind to impeach me
to my country.
"To enlarge on the matter in my own favor would be
easy, but might appear indelicate, and to be Wholly Silent
in the case would be criminal.
"Therefore believing my conduct is to be judg'd by
persons of Liberal Sentiments and Sentiments of mind — I
am, with the greatest respect, Honorable Sir
"Your obliged & dutiful Hume Servt
E Russell."
James Sheafe, one of the fifteen men arrested in Portsmouth,
had no further trouble with the Revolutionists
during the war, and became United States Senator from
New Hampshire in 1801. But in his political campaigns
he was severely reminded by Gen. Sullivan of his doubtful
principles during the Revolution.
Joshua Atherton of Amherst, an able lawyer, and a
wealthy, educated, and cultured gentleman, was opposed
to the war because he believed that the result could not be
other than disastrous to the colonies, and that, in the end,
they would not only fail to gain relief from any of the oppression
under which they labored, but would add a burden
of debt, and be subjected to whatever vindictive measures
might be enacted upon a conquered people. He suffered
some persecution, but his tact and unfailing good-nature
saved him from much more. He was in custody for nearly
a year and a half, and in prison so much of that time that
his health was permanently injured. After the war he resumed
his practice, and filled the office of representative to
the General Court, delegate to the convention to consider
the Federal constitution, State Senator, and Attorney-
General. But his reputation as a Royalist was always a
bar to his gaining the full confidence of the people, and for
the last 13 years of his life he was a physical and mental
invalid.
Among those who declined to sign the Association Test
because they considered themselves bound in honor by oath
of office under the Crown was Theodore Atkinson. A member
of an old, wealthy, and aristocratic family of Portsmouth,
he was connected with the Royal government in New
Hampshire in some capacity, civil, military, or judicial,
nearly all his life after graduating from Harvard College in
1718. At the outbreak of the war he was Secretary of the
province, a position he had held continuously since 1741,
except from 1762 to 1769, when the office was filled by his
son, Theodore, Jr., and he was also Chief Justice of the
province, having been appointed in 1754. He had married
Hannah, daughter of Lieut.-Gov. John Wentworth, and
was accordingly a brother-in-law of Gov. Benning Wentworth,
and, by marriage, an uncle of Gov. John Wentworth,
the last Royal Governor. Sabine calls him a Royalist, but
a careful examination of the case shows that his sense of
honor did not allow him to violate his official oath, and
that after his office was taken away from him he maintained
a strict neutrality which was respected by his townsmen.
In July, 1775, the Provincial Congress sent a committee to
remove the records of the province from Portsmouth inland
to Exeter for greater safety, as the defences of Portsmouth
were not capable of repelling the British ships of war which
were daily expected. When the committee called upon
Secretary Atkinson July 4 for the records of his office, he
refused to deliver them, saying that such an act would be
contrary to his honor and his oath of office. In a letter to
Gov. Wentworth describing the incident the Secretary
says: "After an hour's moderate conversation, and without
any heat, the Committee left me, and I was in hopes I should
not have any farther visit from them, but on the sixth instant
they came again and urged the delivery. I still
refused as before, and told them they well knew it was not
in my power to defend the office by force of arms; if they
took the records etc., or any of them, they must be answerable.
They then entered the office, and took all the
files and records belonging to the Secretary's office, except
those books in which were recorded the several charter
grants of land, which were with your Excellency to take some
minutes from. The Committee offered me their receipt,
agreeable to their orders from the Congress, but I refused,
being no otherwise concerned than barely as a spectator.
They then cleared the office of all the books and papers, and
transported them to Exeter, where they are (I am informed)
to remain until further orders."
On the second visit of the committee the Secretary made
a written reply to their demands, which he filed in the archives,
where it remains to this day.
"In answer to your request touching my delivery of the
records and files belonging and now in the Secretary's office
of the Province, I beg leave to acquaint you that I am by
his Majesty's Special Commission appointed Secretary of
this Province during his Majesty's pleasure & my residence
in the Province, and agreeable thereto I was Admitted and
sworn into that office and had the keeping of the archives belonging
thereto deliverd to me and put under my Direction &
in my keeping. You cannot but see my Honour and my
Oath forbids my consent or even my connivance in such a
Delivery, unless accompanied with his Majesty's supercedent
or my not being in this Province. Gentlemen — the Difficulties,
I may say the Distresses in the Province, & indeed of
the whole Continent are such that every cause of additional
Perplexity need be avoided. I have. Gentlemen, no thots of
attempting to maintain the security of the Records in my
custody by force — this I know would have no good effect; my
aim is only to remove any grounds of complaint that may
be against me for either Neglect or mal-Practice in the Execution
of my said office." Major William Weeks was chairman
of the committee, and in a letter to Gov. Wentworth
dated July 10, 1775, the Secretary says, "Major Weeks
seemed sorrowful that he was appointed."
Judge Atkinson was at this time 77 years old, and respected,
honored, and beloved throughout the province.
He retired to private life, and no suggestion of slander or
suspicion was ever brought against his name. He was not
spared to see the outcome of the struggle, but died in
Portsmouth Sept. 29, 1779.
To introduce a very different and far less attractive
kind of Royalist, let me cite the case of Major Batcheller.
Breed Batcheller of Nelson, son of John, was born in Wenham,
Mass., Dec. 11, 1740. At the age of 16 he served in
Capt. John Burke's Falltown company in the Crown Point
expedition of 1756. He was also in service the following
year, and in the campaigns of 1758 and the Crown Point
expedition of 1759 in Capt. William Paige's Hardwick
company. His father, died in Brookfield, Massachusetts,
June 10, 1765, leaving him some property, and the same
year he went to Nelson, then an unsettled town, where he
purchased nearly 9000 acres of land as a speculation, and
afterwards added to it large tracts in Marlborough and
Hollis. Within ten years he had established a tavern and
built the only grist mill in town.
Breed Batcheller was an arrogant, blustering, profane,
purse-proud man, a man of many enemies, and always in
trouble. He refused to sign the Association Test, probably
because all his neighbors did sign it, and because he feared
the result of rebellion or a revolution on his property.
When the news of the battle of Lexington reached Nelson
the local militia hurriedly assembled and marched to
Cambridge. Major Batcheller was the ranking officer in
the town, but instead of taking command he hastened off
to Keene, ostensibly to find out if the rumor of the battle
were true. He followed his men to Cambridge and spent
several weeks there, but merely as a spectator, as the officers
and men refused to recognize his authority. His allegiance
was already under suspicion. About the time of the Boston
Tea Party he had defied public opinion by bringing home
from Canada a quantity of India tea and offering it for sale
in Nelson and surrounding towns.
In December, 1775, he was summoned before the town
committee of safety, and, though he appeared, he refused to
answer any of their questions and denied their jurisdiction.
Josephine Rugg testified that Major Batcheller damned
the committee and threatened to kill the first man that
should come to take him.
Jonathan Felt heard him say the committee should not
come into his house, but might stand at the door and talk to
his hogs, and that he would be tried by fire and brimstone
before he would be judged by the committee.
Meanwhile Major Batcheller continued his tea-selling
trips, and complaints were made by various town committees
of safety to the General Court. The failure of the
Nelson committee to lodge him in jail caused the town, at a
meeting held Sept. 17, 1776, to appoint a new committee,
and the major was soon brought to jail in Keene. His
case came before the House of Representatives March 20,
1777, and he was placed under bonds of £500 and confined
to the town limits of Nelson on parole. His bounds were
afterwards enlarged to allow him to visit his lands in Marlborough.
This was altogether too much freedom to suit his fellow-townsmen;
they protested most strenuously, and renewed
their efforts for his imprisonment. Their petition for a
new trial was granted. New evidence was introduced,
upon which he was ordered to be closely confined until
further order of the General Court or Committee of Safety.
Witnesses testified that he swore that if a mob came after
him he would stick the small pox into them, though he
would not give it to a dog; that he would rather be hanged
than come under an independent government; that he
damned Col. Hale and the Congress, and said he would
rather be tried by hell-hounds than by the committee;
that he drank the King's health and damnation and confusion
to the States.
But notwithstanding his profanity and violent language,
some of which is too vile for repetition, he was neither a
Royalist nor a Revolutionist at heart, but was solely concerned
about the effect of war on his property, as many witnesses
testified that he said he would be very glad if the
differences between the King and the colonies could be settled
without bloodshed on either side.
Although sentenced, he was not yet in prison. He was
hunted like a wild beast, and lived for some time in a cave
not far from his home still known as "Batcheller's den,"
where he was supplied with food by his wife and a kindhearted
neighbor. Tradition says that one day his pursuers,
being weary, sat down to rest directly over his cave,
and so near that he could hear their terrible threats. Convinced
that only by escape from the country could he save
his life, he fled, so closely followed that he was obliged to
clamber down the face of an almost perpendicular cliff
by a narrow, winding cleft since called "Batcheller's stairs."
He joined Burgoyne's army, and was made a captain in the
Queen's Rangers. His company formed a part of Col.
Baum's force at Bennington, where he was severely wounded
in the shoulder. He was sent to Canada with the other
wounded, and afterwards returned to New York, where he
remained until the close of the war. Then he went with
the British troops to Digby, Nova Scotia, and followed a
life of dissipation. In 1785 he fell out of his boat in the
Annapolis basin, and was drowned. His wife and five
children were left in Nelson in destitute circumstances, but
were allowed a home and a small allowance by the State out
of his confiscated estate.
Dr. Eleazer Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College,
was accused of Toryism for no other reason than that in
1775 he celebrated Thanksgiving at the college on the 16th
of November instead of the 30th. The 16th was the date
established in the Connecticut proclamation, which he received
first; and as the New Hampshire proclamation had
often failed to reach him until after the day named therein,
he had been accustomed to observing some day in November
most convenient to himself and the college. "But,"
he says, "I soon heard there was a great clamor in the
neighborhood * * * and that it was spreading fast
abroad as though we were like to be all undone; that I should
be speedily sent for to Exeter, 150 miles, to answer for it
before the Congress as a Tory." The clamor was so great
that he finally consented to preach another sermon on the
30th. This only made matters worse, and the Doctor says
"a doleful smoke we have." To clear up the smoke he was
obliged to call upon the committees of safety of Hanover,
Lebanon, Plainfield, and Cornish, who completely exonerated
Dr. Wheelock, and charged John Paine of Hanover
with the responsibility for the slander.
There were other Royalists quite as distinguished, as interesting, as picturesque, as any I have mentioned, though perhaps not as available as types of certain classes. Among these were Col. John Fenton, member of the General Court from Plymouth, who took refuge in the
house of Gov. Wentworth, and was persuaded to come forth only by planting a cannon in the street before the house, and bringing it to bear on the front door; and Major
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Pages 47 through 50 missing
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they were like their opponents, no worse, no better. They
had no national, state, or other civil organizations. The
whole Royalist party in the colonies was made up of individuals
here and there, of all classes, of all stations in life,
who did not wish, for various reasons, to dissolve their
allegiance to the Crown. A general definition of the Royalist
of the Revolutionary period would be one who did not
agree with the majority on the main issue of the time; and
the fact of that difference of opinion constituted him a
traitor in the eyes of that majority. We forget, as our
forefathers did, that it was the Revolutionist, not the
Royalist, who was seeking to overthrow an established
government, and that the Royalist was the man who refused
to violate his oath of allegiance to the government
under which he had been born and had grown to man's
estate. That the Revolutionists were justified we can have
no doubt, but that did not deprive the Royalist of the right
to hold to his own opinion so long as he did not interfere
with the rights of others. When he did seek to interfere
with the purposes of the Revolutionists by becoming active
in the cause of the enemy, then, and not until then, did he
become guilty of treason under American law. All the
Revolutionists were traitors under English law, but they
freed themselves from the operation of that law by their
victory in arms.
Viewing the Tory as one who opposed the government
under which he lived in time of war, have we not had them
in every war? I doubt if there has been a war in the history
of civilization in which there have not been, in the territory
of each side, some sympathizers with the enemy. To go
no farther back than the memory of this generation, the
Mexican war was opposed by the entire Whig party; there
were Tories in the War of the Rebellion; they were called
Abolitionists in the South and Copper-Heads in the North.
In the Spanish and Philippine wars there were Tories, but
they were called Anti-Imperialists. It is a great commentary
on the change which growth, prosperity, and success
have wrought in the spirit of this nation that the Royalists
of the Revolution were arrested, tried, and imprisoned, while
the Anti-Imperialists were allowed to publicly give moral
aid and encouragement to an enemy in arms against the
government of the United States without the slightest
molestation, either official or private, while that government
went on its chosen way with calm and dignified toleration.
It is to the credit of the people of New Hampshire that persecution of the Royalists never reached the extreme, never caused the loss of life nor permanent physical injury to any human being. There were no serious riots. Whatever abuses they suffered were due to that undercurrent
of lawlessness which exists in every community at all times, and always breaks forth in some degree in time of war, pestilence, fire, famine, flood, or any other great and overwhelming calamity.
Henry Guy Carleton, in one of his plays, "Ye Earlie Trouble," a delightful play which was born in Boston and died there, caused one of his characters, an irascible old Tory, to say: "When rebels are successful they become patriots." There is much of truth in this cynical remark.
All revolutions must begin in rebellion, in an uprising and a conflict against the existing order of things, an order which has so far failed to shape itself to the ways of human progress as to create and foster a sense of discontent and discord in the hearts of the people, which develops into appeal, protest, and finally war, when all other means of reparation have failed, and all other sources of justice have
been exhausted. Then, if the rebellion is successful, the old order of things is swept away, giving place to new, and he who was active and helpful in the change is hailed as a patriot by the new government he has helped to establish, and he is held in honor and esteem by his people. If a rebel is successful he becomes a patriot, but an unsuccessful rebel remains a rebel forever.
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1. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.