commended at the first--namely, to
fine, imprison, and hang all inimical to the cause, without favour or
affection. I foresaw the evil that would arise from that quarter, and
wished to have timely stopt it. I would have hanged my own brother had
he taken a part with our enemy in the contest."

Such was the "strenuously recommended" wholesale hanging policy of Mr.
John Adams for the extermination of the "Tories"--a curious illustration
of his professed doctrine, that "all men are born free and equal," and
which largely accounts for the treatment of Loyalists during the war,
and for the exasperated feelings which existed between them and their
persecutors and oppressors of the Independence party. One of the first
manifestations of this relentless feeling against the Loyalists occurred
in Mr. Adams' native city of Boston, on its evacuation by General Howe,
who, as Lord Mahon says, "had taken with him, at their own urgent
request, above a thousand of the inhabitants of Boston, who had espoused
the cause of the parent State, and who dreaded on that account the
vengeance of their countrymen. Before they had embarked, they had, as
Washington informs his brother, publicly declared that 'if they thought
the most abject submission would procure them peace, they never would
have stirred.'"[106] (Letter to John Augustine Washington, March 13th,
1776, as printed in the American Archives.)

"Indeed, throughout this contest, and amidst all those qualities
displayed by the Americans, many of those qualities being entitled to
high respect and commendation, there was none certainly less amiable
than their merciless rancour against those among them who adhered to the
royal side. In reference to those, a ferocious saying came to be current
in America, that though we are commanded to forgive our enemies, we are
nowhere commanded to forgive our friends. In reference to them, true
Jetburgh justice was more than once administered--first the punishment,
then the accusation, and last of all the evidence."[107]

The Convention of the State of New York (1776) resolved that "any person
being an adherent to the King of Great Britain should be guilty of
treason and suffer death."[108]

The Loyalists experienced similar treatment in other provinces.

"Previous to their evacuation of Philadelphia, the Congress had ordered
some of the principal Quakers and other gentlemen of the first
consideration in that place, above twenty in number, to be taken