that more than a third of influential characters were
against it.'




CHAPTER III

PERSECUTION OF THE LOYALISTS

In the autumn of the year 1779 an English poet, writing
in the seclusion of his garden at Olney, paid his respects
to the American revolutionists in the following lines:

Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t'other side the Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.

When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.

But oh! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flowers she bears,
Who constitutionally pulls
Your house about your ears.

When William Cowper wrote these lines, his sources of