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The United Empire Loyalists : A Chronicle of the Great Migration by W. Stewart Wallace
page 58 of 109 (53%)
notorious a forfeiture of the faith of government,' wrote
Colonel De Lancey to Edward Winslow, 'that it appears to
me almost incredible, and yet I fear it is not to be
doubted. Could we have known this a little earlier it
would have saved you the trouble of exploring the country
for the benefit of a people you are not connected with.
In short it is a subject too disagreeable to say more
upon.' Winslow, who was hot-headed, talked openly about
the provincials defending the lands on which they had
'squatted.' But protests were in vain; and the King's
American Dragoons were compelled to abandon their
settlement, and to remove up the river to the district
of Prince William. When the main body of the Loyalist
regiments arrived in the autumn they found that the blocks
of land assigned to them had not yet been surveyed. Of
their distress and perplexity there is a picture in one
of Edward Winslow's letters.

I saw [he says] all those Provincial Regiments, which
we have so frequently mustered, landing in this
inhospitable climate, in the month of October, without
shelter, and without knowing where to find a place to
reside. The chagrin of the officers was not to me so
truly affecting as the poignant distress of the men.
Those respectable sergeants of Robinson's, Ludlow's,
Cruger's, Fanning's, etc.--once hospitable yeomen of
the country--were addressing me in language which
almost murdered me as I heard it. 'Sir, we have served
all the war, your honour is witness how faithfully.
We were promised land; we expected you had obtained
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