Note 157 — IV. THE LOYALISTS.

North American Review, lix. p. 270 (Sabine). “It may be asked, why, when the oppressions of the mother country were so very flagrant and apparent, there was not greater unanimity than appears to have existed; and why a party, so large in numbers, which in so many colonies included persons so respectable, and hitherto so universally esteemed, was seemingly, or in fact, averse to breaking away from British dominion. These questions have been put to loyalists themselves. They have answered, that, upon the original formation of parties, they were generally regarded as the common organizations of the ins and outs; the one striving to retain, and the other to gain, patronage and place; and that the mass in taking sides with or against the royal governors, were stimulated by the hopes which politicians have always been able to excite in their followers.”