erness, 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, whilst their opponents, who supported independence, were
called Whigs. Neighbour was arrayed against {293} neighbour, families
were divided, the greatest cruelties were inflicted as the war went on
upon men and women who believed it was their duty to be faithful to
king and country. As soon as the contest was ended, their property was
confiscated in several States. Many persons were banished and
prohibited from returning to their homes. An American writer, Sabine,
tells us that previous to the evacuation of New York, in the month of
September, 1783, "upwards of twelve thousand men, women, and children
embarked at the city, at Long and Staten Islands, for Nova Scotia and
the Bahamas." Very wrong impressions were held in those days of the
climate and resources of the provinces to which these people fled.
Time was to prove that the lot of many of the loyalists had actually
fallen in pleasant places, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Upper
Canada; that the country, where most of them settled, was superior in
many respects to the New England States, and equal to the State of New
York from which so many of them came.

It is estimated that between forty and fifty thousand people reached
British North America by 1786. They commenced to leave their old homes
soon after the breaking out of the war, but the great migration took
place in 1783-84. Many sought the shores of Nova Scotia, and founded
the town of Shelburne, which at one time held a population of ten or
twelve thousand souls, the majority of whom were entirely unsuited to
the conditions of the rough country around them, and soon sought homes
elsewhere. Not a few settled in more favourable parts {294} of Nova
Scotia, and even in Cape Breton. Considerable numbers found rest in
the beautiful valley of the St. John River, and founded the province of
New Brunswick. As many more laid the beginnings of Upper Canada, in
the present county of Glengarry, in the neighbourhood of Kingston and
the Bay of Quinte, on the Niagara Rive