g George
were the ones who should pay for damage and not the States which had
confiscated Loyalist property. Lists of Loyalist names were sometimes
posted and then the persons concerned were likely to be the victims of
any one disposed to mischief. Sometimes a suspected Loyalist would find
an effigy hung on a tree before his own door with a hint that next time
the figure might be himself. A musket ball might come whizzing through
his window. Many a Loyalist was stripped, plunged in a barrel of tar,
and then rolled in feathers, taken sometimes from his own bed.

Punishment for loyalism was not, however, left merely to chance. Even
before the Declaration of Independence, Congress, sitting itself in
a city where loyalism was strong, urged the States to act sternly in
repressing Loyalist opinion. They did not obey every urging of Congress
as eagerly as they responded to this one. In practically every
State Test Acts were passed and no one was safe who did not carry a
certificate that he was free of any suspicion of loyalty to King George.
Magistrates were paid a fee for these certificates and thus had a golden
reason for insisting that Loyalists should possess them. To secure a
certificate the holder must forswear allegiance to the King and promise
support to the State at war with him. An unguarded word even about the
value in gold of the continental dollar might lead to the adding of the
speaker's name to the list of the proscribed. Legislatures passed bills
denouncing Loyalists. The names in Massachusetts read like a list of
the leading families of New England. The "Black List" of Pennsylvania
contained four hundred and ninety names of Loyalists charged with
treason, and Philadelphia had the grim experience of seeing two
Loyalists led to the scaffold with ropes around their necks and hanged.
Most of the persecuted Loyalists lost all their property and remained
exiles from their former homes. The self-appointed committees took in
hand the task of disciplining those who did not fly, and the rabble
often pushed matters to brutal extremes. When we remember that
Washington himself regarded Tories as the vilest of mankind and unfit to
live, we can imagine the spirit of mobs, which had sometimes the further
incentive of greed for Loyalist property. Loyalists had the experience
of what we now call boycotting when they could not buy or sell in the
shops and were forced to see their own shops plundered. Mills would not
grind their