lists were to be found in the present state of
New York, where the capital was in possession of the British from
September, 1776, until the evacuation in 1783. They were also the
majority in Pennsylvania and the southern colonies of South Carolina and
Georgia. In all the other states they represented a large minority of
the best class of their respective communities. It is estimated that
there were actually from thirty to thirty-five thousand, at one time or
other, enrolled in regularly organised corps, without including the
bodies which waged guerilla warfare in South Carolina and elsewhere.

It is only within a decade of years that some historical writers in the
United States have had the courage and honesty to point out the false
impressions long entertained by the majority of Americans with respect
to the Loyalists, who were in their way as worthy of historical eulogy
as the people whose efforts to win independence were crowned with
success. Professor Tyler, of Cornell University, points out that these
people comprised "in general a clear majority of those who, of whatever
grade of culture or of wealth, would now be described as conservative
people." A clear majority of the official class, of men representing
large commercial interests and capital, of professional training and
occupation, clergymen, physicians, lawyers and teachers, "seem to have
been set against the ultimate measures of the revolution". He assumes
with justice that, within this conservative class, one may "usually find
at least a fair portion of the cultivation, of the moral thoughtfulness,
of the personal purity and honour, existing in the community to which
they happen to belong." He agrees with Dr. John Fiske, and other
historical writers of eminence in the United States, in comparing the
Loyalists of 1776 to the Unionists of the southern war of secession from
1861 until 1865. They were "the champions of national unity, as resting
on the paramount authority of the general government." In other words
they were the champions of a United British Empire in the eighteenth
century.

"The old colonial system," says that thoughtful writer Sir J.R. Seeley,
"was not at all tyrannous; and when the breach came the grievances of
which the Americans complained, though perfectly real, were smaller than
ever before or since led to such mighty consequences." The leaders among
the Loyalists, excepting a few rash and angry officials probably,
recognised that ther