The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2. From 1620-1816   By: Egerton Ryerson (1803-1882)

THE

LOYALISTS OF AMERICA

AND

THEIR TIMES:

FROM 1620 TO 1816.

BY EGERTON RYERSON, D.D., LL.D.,

Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada from 1844 to 1876.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, 80 KING STREET EAST; JAMES CAMPBELL & SON, AND WILLING & WILLIAMSON. MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS. 1880.

ENTERED, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year One thousand eight hundred and eighty, by the REV. EGERTON RYERSON, D.D., LL.D., in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

PREFACE.

As no Indian pen has ever traced the history of the aborigines of America, or recorded the deeds of their chieftains, their "prowess and their wrongs" their enemies and spoilers being their historians; so the history of the Loyalists of America has never been written except by their enemies and spoilers, and those English historians who have not troubled themselves with examining original authorities, but have adopted the authorities, and in some instances imbibed the spirit, of American historians, who have never tired in eulogizing Americans and everything American, and deprecating everything English, and all who have loyally adhered to the unity of the British Empire.

I have thought that the other side of the story should be written; or, in other words, the true history of the relations, disputes, and contests between Great Britain and her American colonies and the United States of America.

The United Empire Loyalists were the losing party; their history has been written by their adversaries, and strangely misrepresented. In the vindication of their character, I have not opposed assertion against assertion; but, in correction of unjust and untrue assertions, I have offered the records and documents of the actors themselves, and in their own words. To do this has rendered my history, to a large extent, documentary , instead of being a mere popular narrative. The many fictions of American writers will be found corrected and exposed in the following volumes, by authorities and facts which cannot be successfully denied. In thus availing myself so largely of the proclamations, messages, addresses, letters, and records of the times when they occurred, I have only followed the example of some of the best historians and biographers.

No one can be more sensible than myself of the imperfect manner in which I have performed my task, which I commenced more than a quarter of a century since, but I have been prevented from completing it sooner by public duties pursuing, as I have done from the beginning, an untrodden path of historical investigations. From the long delay, many supposed I would never complete the work, or that I had abandoned it. On its completion, therefore, I issued a circular, an extract from which I hereto subjoin, explaining the origin, design, and scope of the work: