founding of a strong and enduring community.

It was during Governor Haldimand's administration that one of the most
important events in the history of Canada occurred as a result of the
American War of Independence. This event was the coming to the Provinces
of many thousand people, known as United Empire Loyalists, who, during
the progress of the war, but chiefly at its close, left their old homes
in the thirteen colonies. When the Treaty of 1783 was under
consideration, the British representatives made an effort to obtain some
practical consideration from the new nation for the claims of this
unfortunate people who had been subject to so much loss and obloquy
during the war. All that the English envoys could obtain was the
insertion of a clause in the treaty to the effect that Congress would
recommend to the legislatures of the several States measures of
restitution--a provision which turned out, as Franklin intimated at the
time, a perfect nullity. The English Government subsequently indemnified
these people in a measure for their self-sacrifice, and among other
things gave a large number of them valuable tracts of land in the
Provinces of British North America. Many of them settled in Nova Scotia,
others founded New Brunswick and Upper Canada, now Ontario. Their
influence on the political fortunes of Canada has been necessarily very
considerable. For years they and their children were animated by a
feeling of bitter animosity against the United States, the effects of
which could be traced in later times when questions of difference arose
between England and her former colonies. They have proved with the
French Canadians a barrier to the growth of any annexation party, and as
powerful an influence in national and social life as the Puritan element
itself in the Eastern and Western States.

Among the sad stories of the past the one which tells of the exile of
the Loyalists from their homes, of their trials and struggles in the
valley of the St. Lawrence, then a wilderness, demands our deepest
sympathy. In the history of this continent it can be only compared with
the melancholy chapter which relates the removal of the French
population from their beloved Acadia. During the Revolution they
comprised a very large, intelligent, and important body of people, in
all the old colonies, especially in New York and at the South, where
they were in the majority until the peace. They were generally known as
Tories, while thei