r or
administrator of no man's estate. He could neither buy
land nor transfer it to another. If he was a lawyer, he
was denied the right to practise his profession.

This strict legal view of the status of the Loyalist may
not have been always and everywhere enforced. There were
Loyalists, such as the Rev. Mather Byles of Boston, who
refused to be molested, and who survived the Revolution
unharmed. But when all allowance is made for these
exceptions, it is not difficult to understand how the
great majority of avowed Tories came to take refuge within
the British lines, to enlist under the British flag, and,
when the Revolution had proved successful, to leave their
homes for ever and begin life anew amid other surroundings.
The persecution to which they were subjected left them
no alternative.

CHAPTER IV

THE LOYALISTS UNDER ARMS

It has been charged against the Loyalists, and the charge
cannot be denied, that at the beginning of the Revolution
they lacked initiative, and were slow to organize and
defend themselves. It was not, in fact, until 1776 that
Loyalist regiments began to be formed on an extensive
scale. There were several reasons why this was so. In
the first place a great many of the Loyalists, as has
been pointed out, were not at the outset in complete
sympathy with the policy of the British government; and
those who might have been willing to take up arms were
very early disarmed and intimidated by the energy of the
revolutionary authorities. In the second place that very
conservatism which made the Loyalists draw back from
revolution hindered them from taking arms until the king
gave them commissions and provided facilities for military
organization. And there is no fact better attested in
the history of the Revolution than the failure of the
British authorities to understand until it was too late
the great advantages to be derived from the employment
of Loyalist levies. The truth is that the British officers
did not think much more highly of the Loyalists than they
did of the rebels. For both they had the Briton's contempt
for the colonial, and the professional soldier's contempt
for the armed civilian.

Had more use been made of the Tories, the military history
of the Revolution might have been very different. They
understood the conditions of warfare in the New World
much better than the British regulars or the German
mercenaries. Had the advice of prominent Loyalists been
accepted by