USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 3 > Part 24
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SOCIAL DIVISION
The capture of this stronghold by Washington and the American army in 1776 led to an exodus of many of the wealthiest and most aristocratic Boston families. And this exodus left a large vacant space at the top of the social structure. Who was to fill this space? One might have anticipated that it would be pre-empted and occupied by local families whose station in society had been just below that of the departed gentry, especially if these local families were prominent "patriots."
To a certain extent, this proved to be the case, but to a much larger extent, it proved not to be the case. The Warrens of Roxbury and the Adamses of Braintree were naturally drawn into the metropolis and with or without social aspirations were thrust upward to the sum- mit of New England society. This was to have been ex- pected, for they were virtually the middle-class Bostonians who had brought about the ousting of the pro-Britishers. Still they formed but a small fraction of the new metro- politan aristocracy. The greater part of the void was rapidly filled, not by the neighbors of Joseph and James Warren, or of Sam Adams or of John Adams, but by a swarm of out-of-town families from Essex County. Cabots, Gerrys, Grays, Jacksons, Lees, Lowells, Parsonses and Pickerings came to Boston, and not a few of them es-
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THE BESIEGED LOYALISTS
tablished themselves physically in the places of the departed aristocracy. In one way or another the wealth of the Essex nabobs had been increased rather than diminished by the war and they found it easy to acquire the con- fiscated homes of the loyalists. Briefly, this was the local social revolution brought about by the War for American Independence.
THE BESIEGED LOYALISTS
Let us now turn to a less cheerful aspect of this re- adjustment,-the lot of the losers. The open break be- tween liberals and conservatives occurred on April 19, 1775,-"Lexington and Concord Day." Thenceforth a true conservative was a loyalist, just as a true liberal was a rebel; and it is upon true conservatives that our atten- tion will centre. From the day of Concord and Lexington till March 17, 1776-almost a year-many of them were cooped up on the peninsula of Boston, waiting for a de- cisive British victory which would end the American re- bellion and bring a return to the comfortable way of living to which they had been accustomed. One is apt to think of them as a collection of only well-to-do and gently bred families and individuals. That is the natural point of view toward the followers of lost causes. But to obtain a correct conception of these loyalists one must re- member that their numbers included likewise rugged coun- try gentry like General Timothy Ruggles of Hardwick, Edward Winslow of Plymouth and Colonel John Chandler of Worcester; and also a large contingent of unaristocratic farmers, mechanics, and tradespeople.
It is usually estimated that first and last over two thousand loyalists left Massachusetts during the controversy with Great Britain; but those who were in Boston during the siege are said to have numbered only eleven or twelve hundred, including women and children of the loyalist families. Of this aggregation about one hundred were officials-Mandamus Councillors, commissioners and other officers of the customs, and the like; eighteen were clergy- men; one hundred and five were refugees from the coun-
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THE MASSACHUSETTS LOYALISTS
try; two hundred and thirteen were merchants and other residents of Boston; and almost four hundred were yokels, mechanics, and tradespeople. If this analysis is correct the besieged loyalists were of one piece only in their de- votion to the Crown.
Sometimes, too, one is inclined to picture the Massa- chusetts "government-men," as Washington called them, as being woe-begone neutrals remotely resembling the un- fortunate Acadians of twenty years earlier. Somehow it is rather easy to fancy them sitting about in their shabby finery, wringing their hands, and waiting for victory or defeat to release them from their comfortless captivity. This is not quite fair, for on the very day when blood was shed at Lexington and Concord "about two hundred" mer- chants and traders, friends to government, sent in their names to the general [Gage] offering to take up arms as volunteers at his service, which he thankfully accepted of." They were placed under the command of General Ruggles. The name of the Corps appears to have been the Loyal American Associators.
Ruggles was, or at any rate had been, a soldier. He had fought under Abercrombie and under Amherst in the Old French War; but the fact that he was now sixty-five years of age suggests that he and his loyalist battalion may not have been much more militant than a "home guard". Certainly his gentlemen volunteers did not behave very well during the first few weeks of their service. When Gage agreed to permit all "patriot" families to move out of Boston, they remonstrated with him; for they were certain that the presence of these non-combatants constituted Bos- ton's only insurance against assault and conflagration. Re- ceiving no response from the General they threatened to lay down their arms and leave town themselves! All this leads one to surmise that Ruggles's corps was hardly the most gallant or the most tractable organization that took part in the American Revolution. Gage must have won- dered whether it was an asset or a liability to the British army. As the siege progressed two other loyalist companies were formed,-the Loyal Irish Volunteers under Captain
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FLEEING
James Forrest, and the Royal Fencible Americans under Colonel Gorham.
A LADY LOYALIST (1775-1776)
While various non-loyalist families and individuals were doing their best to escape from Boston, at least one loyalist lady in the country was making every exertion to accom- plish the reverse. This lady resided in Hopkinton and bore the title of Lady Frankland. Her romantic story is the subject of Bynner's novel. Besides her five-hundred acre farm in Hopkinton, Lady Frankland (nee Agnes Surriage of Marblehead) possessed a magnificent mansion in town, on Garden Court Street, adjacent to Governor Hutchinson's residence. Not long after the fight at Lexington and Con- cord her Ladyship decided that for a person of her loyalist proclivities Boston would provide a more congenial environ- ment than the wilds of Hopkinton.
Accordingly she petitioned the Provincial Congress for a pass to the British lines, and stipulated that with her she wished to take "six trunks, one chest, three beds and bed- ding, six wethers, two pigs, one small keg of pickled tongues, some hay, three bags of corn." Her request was granted and to Boston she went, bag and baggage, with a guard of six Yankee soldiers to defend her from the pos- sible assaults of country ruffians and overzealous "patriots". About the first of June she was once more in her town house, and not many days elapsed before she witnessed from her windows the battle of Bunker Hill and the burn- ing of Charlestown. These sights seem to have determined her to move still farther away from her belligerent country- men, and before the great hegira of March 1776 she de- parted for England.
FLEEING FROM THE WRATH TO COME (1776)
The discomforts of the siege of Boston have been re- counted elsewhere, so the present story of the loyalists begins at the end of that dreary winter. One day in March, 1776, the beleaguered inhabitants learned on good authority that Howe intended to evacuate the town at an early date.
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THE MASSACHUSETTS LOYALISTS
This was indeed a blow. As Washington himself expressed it, "Not the last trump could have struck them with greater consternation."
Soon after Bunker Hill Lord Dartmouth had written Gage: "If we are driven to the difficulty of relinquishing Boston, care must be taken that the officers and friends of the government be not left exposed to the rage and insult of rebels, who set no bounds to their barbarity." Accordingly General Howe, who had succeeded Gage, notified the townspeople and refugees that transportation would be provided for those who signified their wish to leave Boston with the British troops. And Howe, it should be said to his credit, kept his word so unreservedly that the household effects of the departing loyalists were loaded aboard the vessels at the expense of military stores which had to be left behind. Nevertheless, one may well believe that the days between March 7 and 17, 1776 were among the busiest and most trying the Tories had ever known.
Moving has always been a proverbially difficult under- taking. Moving without knowing whither, or for how long, must have been the supreme test of many a loyalist's devotion to the British government. Furthermore, there was a scarcity of shipping at the disposal of the army, and the reader with a reasonable amount of imagination can pic- ture the confusion which Howe admitted, but hardly exag- gerated, in his official statement: "A thousand difficulties arose on account of the disproportion of transports for the conveyance of the troops, the well-affected inhabitants, their most valuable property, and the quantity of military stores to be carried away."
A LOYALIST JUDGE
Among those fleeing from the wrath of the rebels was Chief Justice Peter Oliver, whose office and social position doubtless insured his being provided with the best accom- modations possible in the hurried exodus. On March 10 he "embarked on board the Pacific, Indiaman, Captain James Dun, which lay in King Road it being a very commodious vessell, which General Howe was so polite as to appropriate to the accommodation of my friends and me." For two
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A LOYALIST SHOPKEEPER
or three weeks the Pacific lay at anchor in Boston harbor and in Nantasket Roads; and then "in the 2nd and last division of the fleet, about 70 sail," put to sea,-with Hali- fax as her destination.
Judge Oliver does not appear to have been especially un- comfortable during the upheaval, nor regretful at leaving his native province. But when actually on his way to Halifax he entered in his diary (March 27) the following bitter lament. "Here I took my leave of that once happy country, where peace and plenty reigned uncontrouled, till that in- fernal Hydra Rebellion, with its hundred Heads, had de- voured its happiness, spread desolation over its fertile fields, and ravaged the peacefull mansions of its inhabitants, to whom late, very late if ever, will return that security and repose that once surrounded them; and if in part restored, will be attended with the disagreeable recollection of the savage barbarities, and diabolical cruelties which had been perpetrated to support rebellion, and which were instigated by Leaders who were desperate in their fortunes, unbounded in their ambition and malice, and infernal in their dictates. Here I drop the filial tear into the Urn of my Country.
O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint-Nov-Angli- canos !
And here I bid A Dieu to that shore which I never wish to tread again till that greatest of social blessings, a firm established British Government, precedes or accompanies me thither."
A LOYALIST SHOPKEEPER
A more vivid picture of the flight of the Massachusetts loyalists is given by one of their number who was blessed with the cheerful name of Jolley Allen. Mr. Allen, one infers, was not of the upper crust in pre-revolutionary Bos- ton. Neither, by any means, was he of the under crust. According to his own statement he was a successful shop- keeper and the father of seven children. When the time came for choosing between staying or going, he chose to depart with the British army, but for one reason or another he had to make his own arrangements for transportation. His account of how he fared at the outset is both amusing and pitiful.
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THE MASSACHUSETTS LOYALISTS
"The 11th of March, 1776, I hired a vessel for my effects and family of one Captain Robert Campbell (as he styled himself) ; he came and offered me his vessel as he said, and told me it was entirely at my service, as he had disposed of no part of it, and if I had a mind to have part or the whole of the vessel it was for me to say. I asked him who was to command the vessel. He said the vessel belonged to him, and he was the captain. I then asked him if he was used to go to sea; he answered he had, for above twenty years and upwards he had gone captain of his own vessel. Upon that, I showed him my shop and two ware- houses all full of goods, and likewise, I showed him the furniture of my house, which article of furniture alone cost me above one thousand pounds sterling. I then asked this villain (for I cannot look upon him in any other light) how much of his vessel he thought I should want, being myself not acquainted therewith. He told me he thought three- quarters of the vessel would hold all my effects. I answered, if that was the case, I had rather hire the whole of the vessel, that I might have room enough, which I accordingly did, and agreed with him for fifteen guineas sterling to carry me, my family, and effects to where the fleet and army went; and paid him down half the money and took his receipt for the same,-for at that time we did not know where we was going. Accordingly, I began to take my goods down and pack them up immediately, and was obliged to put my goods in the street, as I packed them up; and myself and family was obliged to watch them two days and two nights, before I could get any carts to carry them down to the vessel, which was about a quarter of an English mile from my house to where the vessel lay, which cost me upwards of forty-two pounds sterling, all ready cash from me, to carry my goods to the said vessel.
"The 14th of March myself and family lay on board the said vessel. The 17th towed down below the castle by strange sailors. 19th, towed down to Nantasket Road by other strange sailors, and there lay till the 27th of March. At three o'clock in the afternoon sailed under the convoy of Admiral Gratton. I believe the fleet that I was in made about eighty sail of us, at that time; but when we came
Courtesy of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company WILLIAM BRATTLE
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LOYALISTS ON THE SEA
to weigh anchor, and got it three-quarters up, a large ship of about five hundred ton came foul of us, and got foul of our bowsprit with bitter oaths that they would sink us, if we did not let go our anchor immediately. At that time, we had carried away all their side rails and a carriage that was hung over, with our bowsprit. When they got clear of us, we fell to work to get our anchor up again, and another vessel of near seven hundred ton fell foul of our bowsprit, which carried away their quarter gallery, and did them abundance more mischief, which obliged us to let our anchor down again. Accordingly, we weighed our anchor a third time, and got it up so high that the vessel moved. I then seemly was glad to think we should get out of Nan- tasket Road, and get up to the fleet, which hove to for us; but I was soon disappointed of my hopes: the stern of our vessel got aground."
Not even here did Jolley Allen's troubles end. Ere long the vessel was cast away on Cape Cod, his effects were seized, and his wife taken from him by death.
LOYALISTS ON THE SEA
To return to the Massachusetts loyalists as a whole, about eleven hundred of them went off to Halifax with the army. Among them was Benjamin Hallowell, comptroller of the port of Boston. His accommodations could hardly have been worse than the average, yet we are told that in his cabin "there were thirty-seven persons-men, women and children; servants, masters and mistresses; obliged to pig together on the floor, there being no berths." For six days and a half "a tumbling sea" made these wretched beings even more wretched. When one considers what a crazy fleet theirs was, assembled in a hurry and loaded in con- fusion, it seems little less than miraculous that few vessels besides Jolley Allen's came to grief.
Walter Barrell, one of the more prominent loyalists of Boston, made a partial list of the company that left town with the army in March 1776. As one glances through it, certain names make a deeper impression than others- Oliver, Gray, Hutchinson, Lechmere, Erving, Hallowell, At- kinson, Byles, Brattle, Dumaresq, Faneuil, Gardiner, Jef-
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THE MASSACHUSETTS LOYALISTS
feries, Loring, Pelham, Saltonstall, Winslow, Wheelwright. They are all there; but this does not mean, of course, that everyone in Massachusetts bearing this or that surname was a loyalist and fled with the British army. It merely sug- gests that the more conservative members of various promi- nent families chose to leave their homes and familiar sur- roundings rather than to try to adjust themselves to the uncertainties of a civil war.
HALIFAX IN 1776
The harbor of Halifax always receives praise, but few visitors have a good word to say for the climate of that vicinity. The exiles from Massachusetts found it very dif- ferent from what they had been accustomed to at home. "The air", wrote Judge Oliver, "is very unpleasant and uncertain : you will feel many changes of it in a day: and if you would be safe in visiting your next neighbour, let your servant attend you with a cloak; for although you may set out in a cloudless sky, a hard shower may over- take you after a few steps. But notwithstanding of these sudden changes, it is agreed by all that the place is healthy : but if any one chuses to live there, he is welcome to do so, provided he will not compel me to live there too." A British officer described it more succinctly as "a cursed, cold, wintry- place, even yet; nothing to eat, less to drink."
Halifax itself was at that time a garrison and trading village built on the side of a hill. Lodgings were very scarce and in many cases "quite intolerable". Upon the arrival of the army and the refugees, rents went up to unimagined heights and provisions became "as dear as in London". It was all very well for Judge Oliver to regard the place with detachment, for he soon obtained passage for England on a good ship; but for those who could not so easily leave the New World the environment must have been depressing indeed. General Howe seems to have done all he could to alleviate their condition. He fed them "from the King's stores", and when it became evident that Halifax was no place for most of them he promised that the first spare transport should take to England those who wished to cross the Atlantic.
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THE TEST LAW
WASHINGTON ON THE LOYALISTS (1776)
After the passing of a century and a half we are dis- posed to regard the Massachusetts loyalists, especially those that left Boston in March 1776, with compassion. But that attitude did not prevail among their American contempo- raries. Washington, for instance, whose letters usually sound more grave than heated, indulged in relatively strong lan- guage when he expressed his opinion of them not many days after the evacuation of Boston. "All those who took upon themselves the style and title of government-men in Boston, in short, all those who have acted an unfriendly part in the great contest have shipped themselves off in the same hurry, but under still greater disadvantages than the King's troops, being obliged to man their own vessels, as seamen enough could not be had for the King's transports, and submit to every hardship that can be conceived. One or two have done, what a great number ought to have done long ago, committed suicide. By all accounts there never existed a more miserable set of beings than these wretched creatures now are. Taught to believe that the power of Great Britain was superior to all opposition, and, if not, that foreign aid was at hand, they were even higher and more insulting than the regulars. When the order issued, therefore, for embarking the troops in Boston, no electric shock, no sudden explosion of thunder, in a word, not the last trump could have struck them with greater consterna- tion. They were at their wits' end, and conscious of their black ingratitude, they chose to commit themselves in the manner I have above described, to the mercy of the waves at a tempestuous season, rather than meet their offended countrymen."
THE TEST LAW (1776)
If Washington felt as strongly as this about the pro- British Americans whom he had just driven out of the land, one may be certain that the average Massachusetts patriot must have entertained at best a cordial dislike for those who remained behind. If the customary estimate ap- proximates the truth, the evacuation of Boston removed only about half of the Massachusetts loyalists. The others
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THE MASSACHUSETTS LOYALISTS
were scattered throughout the population; and it is safe to conjecture that almost every town contained at least a half dozen Tories or Tories-suspect.
What should be done about them? The Massachusetts Congress answered the question on May 1, 1776 by passing a test law. Under the provisions of this act every male person over sixteen years of age was required to subscribe a declaration "before God and the world" that he believed that "the war, resistance and opposition in which the United American Colonies are now engaged against the fleets and armies of Great Britain, is, on the part of the said colonies, just and necessary"; and to give his word that he would in no way assist the British forces during the said war. If anyone should refuse or neglect to subscribe to this declara- tion within twenty-four hours after it was tendered to him, his name was to be reported to a local justice of the peace. Thereupon the justice of the peace was to issue a warrant for the man's arrest and appearance before him, to show cause why he should not be disarmed.
PENALTIES
If "the delinquent" could not satisfy the justice on this point, he was to be obliged to give up all his "arms, am- munition, and warlike equipment." All this sounds reason- able indeed; but almost incredibly liberal is the suggestion that equipment confiscated in this way shall be "paid for as the General Court shall order."
Another section of the act disqualified all recusants from holding any office, civil or military, and from voting in any civil or military election. As to ministers and school- masters, their salaries were to cease from the moment of their refusal to subscribe; "and if any of the governors of Harvard College shall refuse to sign the declaration aforesaid", their salaries, too, were to be cut off.
The test act which we have just described sounds as if it would have sifted the Tories from the patriots in a thor- oughly satisfactory manner. Probably it did so, but there was one variety of loyalist about whom our ancestors felt more strongly than they did about the rest. This variety might be termed "the siege-of-Boston loyalist", though it
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CONSERVATION OF PROPERTY
included others besides those who spent the winter of 1775- 76 on the peninsula. As a matter of fact it included all who had ever taken refuge within the British lines or had in any way assisted the enemy since April 19, 1775.
In regard to the political sentiments of these individuals the revolutionary government had no doubt whatever. They were dyed-in-the-wool Tories and there was no point in allowing them even to try to meet the requirements of the test act. Therefore the privilege of taking the oath was not extended to them. If they were discovered in the colony they were to be disarmed, disfranchised, and dis- qualified for holding any office whatever.
CONSERVATION OF LOYALIST PROPERTY
For the time being, at least, the provisions of the test act would suffice to protect the patriot government from in- sidious attacks; but other loyalist problems already forced themselves upon the minds of the Provincial Congress or of its representative, the Committee of Safety. For in- stance, what disposition was to be made of the abandoned estates of fugitive Tories? Were they to be left to the mercy of curious neighbors, lawless boys, and unprincipled men? The Committee of Safety decided that whatever course might ultimately be adopted, the present called for conservation of this property by the revolutionary authori- ties. As early as May 3, 1775, scarcely two weeks after the fights at Lexington and Concord, the Committee took steps to secure the house furnishings of absent loyalists and deposit them in places of safety.
Thus far the action of the Committee appears to have been wholly altruistic; but toward the end of May it issued a decree that contained a different suggestion. This edict made it illegal for any person in the province to buy or lease any real estate of the refugees. It was a peculiar measure and its purpose cannot be easily fathomed; but in it one can see the suggestion of future confiscation of this property by the colony. Whatever might become of them in the end, the abandoned estates were, for the pres- ent not to be bought or sold. Before long they threatened to become a greater bother than they were worth. The
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