hange of
prisoners, the Americans began by claiming the immediate
payment of what the British prisoners had cost them. This
of course broke up the meeting at once. In the meantime
the German prisoners in British pay were offered their
freedom at eighty dollars a head. Then farmers came
forward to buy up these prisoners at this price. But the
farmers found competitors in the recruiting sergeants,
who urged the Germans, with only too much truth, not to
become 'the slaves of farmers' but to follow 'the glorious
trade of war' against their employers, the British
government. To their honour be it said, these Germans
kept faith with the British, much to the surprise of the
Americans, who, like many modern writers, could not
understand that these foreign mercenaries took a
professional pride in carrying out a sworn contract, even
when it would pay them better to break it. The British
prisoners were not put up for sale in the same way. But
money sent to them had a habit of disappearing on the
road--one item mentioned by Carleton amounted to six
thousand pounds.

If such was the happy lot of prisoners during the war,
what was the wretched lot of Loyalists after the treaty
of peace? The words of one of the many petitions sent in
to Carleton will suggest the answer. 'If we have to
encounter this inexpressible misfortune we beg consideration
for our lives, fortunes, and property, _and not by mere
terms of treaty_.' What this means cannot be appreciated
unless we fully realize how strong the spirit of hate
and greed had grown, and why it had grown so strong.

The American Revolution had not been provoked by
oppression, violence, and massacre. The 'chains and
slavery' of revolutionary orators was only a figure of
speech. The real causes were constitutional and personal;
and the actual crux of the question was one of payment
for defence. Of course there were many other causes at
work. The social, religious, and political grudges with
which so many emigrants had left the mother country had
not been forgotten and were now revived. Commercial
restrictions, however well they agreed with the spirit
of the age, were galling to such keen traders. And the
mere difference between colonies and motherland had
produced misunderstandings on both sides. But the main
provocative cause was Imperial taxation for local defence.
The Thirteen Colonies could not have held their own by
land or sea, much less could they have conquered their
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