XIII. THE LOYALIST IN HIS NEW HOME
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The United Empire Loyalists have suffered a strange fate
at the hands of historians. It is not too much to say
that for nearly a century their history was written by
their enemies. English writers, for obvious reasons, took
little pleasure in dwelling on the American Revolution,
and most of the early accounts were therefore American
in their origin. Any one who takes the trouble to read
these early accounts will be struck by the amazing manner
in which the Loyalists are treated. They are either
ignored entirely or else they are painted in the blackest
colours.

So vile a crew the world ne'er saw before,
And grant, ye pitying heavens, it may no more!
If ghosts from hell infest our poisoned air,
Those ghosts have entered these base bodies here.

So sang a ballad-monger of the Revolution; and the opinion
which he voiced persisted after him. According to some
American historians of the first half of the nineteenth