The work of the official agencies for suppression of opposition was sometimes supplemented by mob violence.  A few Tories were hanged without trial, and others were tarred and feathered.  One was placed upon a cake of ice and held there “until his loyalty to King George might cool.”  Whole families were driven out of their homes to find their way as best they could within the British lines or into Canada, where the British government gave them lands.  Such excesses were deplored by Washington, but they were defended on the ground that in effect a civil war, as well as a war for independence, was being waged.

=The Patriots and Tories.=—­Thus, by one process or another, those who were to be citizens of the new republic were separated from those who preferred to be subjects of King George.  Just what proportion of the Americans favored independence and what share remained loyal to the British monarchy there is no way of knowing.  The question of revolution was not submitted to popular vote, and on the point of numbers we have conflicting evidence.  On the patriot side, there is the testimony of a careful and informed observer, John Adams, who asserted that two-thirds of the people were for the American cause and not more than one-third opposed the Revolution at all stages.

On behalf of the loyalists, or Tories as they were popularly known, extravagant claims were made.  Joseph Galloway, who had been a member of the first Continental Congress and had fled to England when he saw its temper, testified before a committee of Parliament in 1779 that not one-fifth of the American people supported the insurrection and that “many more than four-fifths of the people prefer a union with Great Britain upon constitutional principles to independence.”  At the same time General Robertson, who had lived in America twenty-four years, declared that “more than two-thirds of the people would prefer the king’s government to the Congress’ tyranny.”  In an address to the king in that year a committee of American loyalists asserted that “the number of Americans in his Majesty’s army exceeded the number of troops enlisted by Congress to oppose them.”

=The Character of the Loyalists.=—­When General Howe evacuated Boston, more than a thousand people fled with him.  This great company, according to a careful historian, “formed the aristocracy of the province by virtue of their official rank; of their dignified callings and professions; of their hereditary wealth and of their culture.”  The act of banishment passed by Massachusetts in 1778, listing over 300 Tories, “reads like the social register of the oldest and noblest families of New England,” more than one out of five being graduates of Harvard College.  The same was true of New York and Philadelphia; namely, that the leading loyalists were prominent officials of the old order, clergymen and wealthy merchants.  With passion the loyalists fought against the inevitable or with anguish of heart they left as refugees for a life of uncertainty in Canada or the mother country.