to their estates. But the emigration which took place between 1783 and 1785 was very large. It has been estimated that 100,000 persons, Emigration of Tories or nearly three per cent. of the total white population, - quit the country. Those from the southern states went mostly to the Bahamas and Florida; while those from the north laid the foundation of new British states in New Brunswick and Upper Canada. Many of these refugees appealed to the British government for indemnification for their losses, and their claims received. prompt attention. A parliamentary commission. was appointed to inquire into the matter, and by the year 1790 some $16,000,000 had been distributed among about 4,000 sufferers, while many others received grants of crown-lands, or half-pay as military officers, or special annuities, or appointments in the civil service. On the whole, the compensation which the refugees received from Parliament seems to have been much more ample than that which the ragged soldiers of our Revolutionary army ever received from Congress. While the political passions resulting in this forced emigration of loyalists were such as naturally arise in the course of a civil war, the historian cannot but regret that the United States should have been deprived of the services of so many excellent citizens. In nearly all such cases of wholesale popular vengeance, it is the wrong individuals who suffer. We could well afford to dispense with the border ruffians who abetted the Indians in their carnival of burning and scalping, but the refugees of 1784 were for the most part peaceful and unoffending families, above the average in education and refinement. The vicarious suffering inflicted upon them set nothing right, but simply increased the mass of wrong, while to the general interests of the country the loss of such people was in every way damaging. The immediate political detriment wrought at the time, though it is that which most nearly concerns this moment of our story, was probably the least important. Since Congress was manifestly unable to carry out the treaty, an excuse was furnished to England for declining to fulfil some of its provisions. In regard to the loyalists, indeed, the treaty had recognized that Congress possessed but an advisory power; but in the other provision concerning the payment of private debts, which in the popular mind was very much mixed up with the question of justice to the loyalists, the faith of the United States was distinctly pledged. On this point, also, Congress was powerless to enforce the treaty. Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina had all enacted laws obstructing the collection of British debts; and Congress is unable to enforce pay to British creditors. England refuses to surrender the in flat defiance of the treaty these statutes remained in force until after the downfall of the Confederation. The States were aware that such conduct needed an excuse, and one was soon forthcoming. Many ment of debts negroes had left the country with the British fleet: some doubtless had sought their freedom; others, perhaps, had been kidnapped as booty, western posts and sold to planters in the West Indies. The number of these black men carried away by the English fleet had been magnified tenfold by popular rumour. Complaints had been made to Sir Guy Carleton, but he had replied that any negro who came within his lines was presumably a freeman, and he could. not lend his aid in remanding such persons to slavery. Jay, as one of the treaty commissioners, gave it as his opinion that Carleton was quite right in this, but he thought that where a loss of slaves could be proved, Great Britain was bound to make pecuniary compensation to the owners. The matter was wrangled over for years in the state legislatures, in town and county meetings, at dinner-tables, and in taverns, with the general result that, until such compensation should be made, the statutes hindering the collection of debts would not be repealed. In retaliation for this, Great Britain refused to withdraw her garrisons from the northwestern fortresses,1 which the treaty had surrendered to the United States. This measure was very keenly felt by the people. As an assertion of superior strength, it was peculiarly galling to our weak and divided confederacy, and it also wrought us direct practical injury. It encouraged the Indian tribes in their depredations on the frontier, and it deprived American merchants of a lucrative trade in furs. In the spring of 1787 there were advertised for sale in London more than 360,000 skins, worth $1,200,000 at the lowest estimate; and had the posts been surrendered according to the treaty, all this would probably have passed through the hands of American merchants. The London fur traders were naturally very unwilling to lose their control over this business, and in the language of modern politics they brought "pressure" to bear on their government to retain the fortresses. as long as possible. The American refusal to pay British creditors furnished a plausible excuse, while the weakness of Congress made any kind of reprisal impossible, - and it was not until Washington's second term as president, after our national credit had been fully re 1 These were Ogdensburgh, Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, and Mackinaw, with a few others of less importance. |