ish colonial system burdensome, and only
the more extreme among them approved of the stamp act and the Townshend
duties. Many took the American view of the rights of the colonies; they
desired reforms and redress of grievances, and some of them were not
averse from the milder forms of resistance. Yet all were loyal to the
crown and acknowledged the supremacy of parliament. The hopes of the
moderate section were disappointed by the congress of 1774; in common
with the more extreme loyalists they held that it exceeded its powers,
and their denial of its authority united the loyalist party.

The loyalists, or tories as they were called, comprised, in addition to
the royal officers, many of the best and most cultivated people in the
colonies, a majority of the larger landowners, by far the greater number
of the episcopal clergy together with some other religious teachers,
very many physicians, fewer lawyers, though some of the most eminent
among them, and many of the wealthier merchants, who disliked the
interruption of trade and believed that its prosperity depended on
British commerce. Among the lower classes some farmers, mechanics, and
labourers were loyalists. They were weakest in New England, though
fairly numerous in Connecticut. New York was throughout the loyalist
stronghold, and, of the other middle colonies, Pennsylvania was
disinclined to revolution and New Jersey contained a strong loyalist
minority. In the southern colonies they were about as numerous as the
whigs, and in South Carolina and Georgia perhaps outnumbered them. John
Adams, who would be inclined to underestimate their number, thought that
they were a third of the population of the thirteen colonies. The number
on each side fluctuated from time to time; the loyalists claimed to be
in a majority, and it is probable that at least half of the most
respected part of the population were throughout the struggle either
avowedly or secretly averse from revolution.[94] At the lowest
computation 20,000 loyalists joined the British army, and some thirty
regiments or battalions of them were regularly organised and paid. Most
of them were peaceable men, not more inclined for fighting than the
mass of their opponents who were forced into war by an active minority.
Through the skilful management of this minority the loyalists were
disarmed everywhere at the beginning of the struggle. They suffered
terrible persecution. A man suspected of loyalism would be summoned