communities thus closely united; but unhappily for the empire the revolutionary element carried the day.  The people at large were never given an opportunity of considering this wise proposition, and the motion was erased from the records of congress.  In its place, the people were asked to sign “articles of association” which bound them to cease all commercial relations with England.  Had Galloway’s idea been carried out to a successful issue, we might have now presented to the world the noble spectacle of an empire greater by half a continent and seventy-five millions of people.

But while Galloway and other Loyalists failed in their measures of adjusting existing difficulties and remedying grievances, history can still do full justice to their wise counsel and resolute loyalty, which refused to assist in tearing the empire to fragments.  These men, who remained faithful to this ideal to the very bitter end, suffered many indignities at the hands of the professed lovers of liberty, even in those days when the questions at issue had not got beyond the stage of legitimate argument and agitation.  The courts of law were closed and the judges prevented from fulfilling their judicial functions.  No class of persons, not even women, were safe from the insults of intoxicated ruffians.  The clergy of the Church of England were especially the object of contumely.

During the war the passions of both parties to the controversy were aroused to the highest pitch, and some allowance must be made for conditions which were different from those which existed when the questions at issue were still matters of argument.  It is impossible in times of civil strife to cool the passions of men and prevent them from perpetrating cruelties and outrages which would be repugnant to their sense of humanity in moments of calmness and reflection.  Both sides, more than once, displayed a hatred of each other that was worthy of the American Iroquois themselves.  The legislative bodies were fully as vindictive as individuals in the persecution of the Loyalists.  Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, disqualification for office, banishment, and even death in case of return from exile, were among the penalties to which these people were subject by the legislative acts of the revolutionary party.

If allowance can be made for the feelings of revenge and passion which animate persons under the abnormal conditions of civil war, no extenuating circumstances appear at that later period when peace was proclaimed and congress was called upon to fulfil the terms of the treaty and recommend to the several independent states the restoration of the confiscated property of Loyalists.  Even persons who had taken up arms were to have an opportunity of receiving their estates back on condition of refunding the money which had been paid for them, and protection was to be afforded to those persons during twelve months while they were engaged in obtaining the restoration of their property.