The Loyalists of America and Their Times

The Loyalists of America and
Their Times, by

Edgerton Ryerson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
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Title: The Loyalists of America and Their Times From 1620-1816
Author: Edgerton Ryerson
Release Date: April 8, 2007 [EBook #21012]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: (signature) E. Ryerson]
THE

LOYALISTS OF AMERICA
AND
THEIR TIMES:
FROM 1620 TO 1816.
BY EGERTON RYERSON, D.D., LL.D.,
Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada from 1844 to
1876.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, 80 KING STREET EAST; JAMES
CAMPBELL & SON, AND WILLING & WILLIAMSON.
MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS. 1880.
ENTERED, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the
year One thousand eight hundred and eighty, by the REV. EGERTON
RYERSON, D.D., LL.D., in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

PREFACE.
As no Indian pen has ever traced the history of the aborigines of
America, or recorded the deeds of their chieftains, their "prowess and
their wrongs"--their enemies and spoilers being their historians; so the
history of the Loyalists of America has never been written except by
their enemies and spoilers, and those English historians who have not
troubled themselves with examining original authorities, but have
adopted the authorities, and in some instances imbibed the spirit, of
American historians, who have never tired in eulogizing Americans and
everything American, and deprecating everything English, and all who
have loyally adhered to the unity of the British Empire.

I have thought that the other side of the story should be written; or, in
other words, the true history of the relations, disputes, and contests
between Great Britain and her American colonies and the United States
of America.
The United Empire Loyalists were the losing party; their history has
been written by their adversaries, and strangely misrepresented. In the
vindication of their character, I have not opposed assertion against
assertion; but, in correction of unjust and untrue assertions, I have
offered the records and documents of the actors themselves, and in their
own words. To do this has rendered my history, to a large extent,
documentary, instead of being a mere popular narrative. The many
fictions of American writers will be found corrected and exposed in the
following volumes, by authorities and facts which cannot be
successfully denied. In thus availing myself so largely of the
proclamations, messages, addresses, letters, and records of the times
when they occurred, I have only followed the example of some of the
best historians and biographers.
No one can be more sensible than myself of the imperfect manner in
which I have performed my task, which I commenced more than a
quarter of a century since, but I have been prevented from completing it
sooner by public duties--pursuing, as I have done from the beginning,
an untrodden path of historical investigations. From the long delay,
many supposed I would never complete the work, or that I had
abandoned it. On its completion, therefore, I issued a circular, an
extract from which I hereto subjoin, explaining the origin, design, and
scope of the work:--
"I have pleasure in stating that I have at length completed the task
which the newspaper press and public men of different parties urged
upon me from 1855 to 1860. In submission to what seemed to be public
opinion, I issued, in 1861, a circular addressed to the United Empire
Loyalists and their descendants, of the British Provinces of America,
stating the design and scope of my proposed work, and requesting them
to transmit to me, at my expense, any letters or papers in their
possession which would throw light upon the early history and

settlement in these Provinces by our U.E. Loyalist forefathers. From all
the British Provinces I received answers to my circular; and I have
given, with little abridgment, in one chapter of my history, these
intensely interesting letters and papers--to which I have been enabled to
add considerably from two large quarto manuscript volumes of papers
relating to the U.E. Loyalists in the Dominion Parliamentary Library at
Ottawa, with the use of which I have been favoured by the learned and
obliging librarian, Mr. Todd.
"In addition to all the works relating to the subject which I could collect
in Europe and America, I spent, two years since, several months in the
Library of the British Museum, employing the assistance of