to prove a most effective engine for stamping out loyalism,
and which was to contribute in no small degree to the
success of the Revolution.

Though the action of the mob never entirely disappeared,
the persecution of the Tories was taken over, as soon as
the Revolution got under way, by this semi-official
organization. What usually happened was that the Continental
or provincial Congress laid down the general policy to
be followed, and the local committees carried it out in
detail. Thus, when early in 1776 the Continental Congress
recommended the disarming of the Tories, it was the local
committees which carried the recommendation into effect.
During this early period the conduct of the revolutionary
authorities was remarkably moderate. They arrested the
Tories, tried them, held them at bail for their good
behaviour, quarantined them in their houses, exiled them
to other districts, but only in extreme cases did they
imprison them. There was, of course, a good deal of
hardship entailed on the Tories; and occasionally the
agents of the revolutionary committees acted without
authority, as when Colonel Dayton, who was sent to arrest
Sir John Johnson at his home in the Mohawk valley, sacked
Johnson Hall and carried off Lady Johnson a prisoner, on
finding that Sir John Johnson had escaped to Canada with
many of his Highland retainers. But, as a rule, in this
early period, the measures taken both by the revolutionary
committees and by the army officers were easily defensible
on the ground of military necessity.