Among those who fled to England there were a few who kept
diaries and journals, or wrote memoirs, which have found
their way into print; and some contemporary records have
been published with regard to the settlements of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick. But of the Loyalists who settled
in Upper and Lower Canada there is hardly one who left
behind him a written account of his experiences. The
reason for this is that many of them were illiterate,
and those who were literate were so occupied with carving
a home for themselves out of the wilderness that they
had neither time nor inclination for literary labours.
Were it not for the state papers preserved in England,
and for a collection of papers made by Sir Frederick
Haldimand, the Swiss soldier of fortune who was governor
of Quebec at the time of the migration, and who had a
passion for filing documents away, our knowledge of the
settlements in the Canadas would be of the most sketchy
character.

It would serve no good purpose to attempt here an exhaustive
account of the printed sources relating to the United
Empire Loyalists. All that can be done is to indicate
some of the more important. The only general history of
the Loyalists is Egerton Ryerson, _The Loyalists of
America and Their Times_ (2 vols., 1880); it is diffuse
and antiquated, and is written in a spirit of
undiscriminating admiration of the Loyalists, but it
contains much good material. Lorenzo Sabine, _Biographical
Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution_ (2
vols., 1864), is an old book, but it is a storehouse of
information about individual Loyalists, and it contains
a suggestive introductory essay. Some admirable work on
the Loyalists has been done by recent American historians.
Claude H. Van Tyne, _The Loyalists in the American
Revolution_ (1902), is a readable and scholarly study,
based on extensive researches into documentary and
newspaper sources. The Loyalist point of view will be
found admirably set forth in M. C. Tyler, _The Literary
History of the American Revolution_ (2 vols., 1897), and
_The Party of the Loyalists in the American Revolution_
(American Historical Review, I, 24). Of special studies
in a limited field the most valuable and important is A.
C. Flick, _Loyalism in New York_ (1901); it is the result
of exhaustive researches, and contains an excellent
bibliography of printed and manuscript sources. Other
studies in a limited field are James H. Stark, _The
Loyalists of Mas