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 IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, 80 KING STREET EAST; 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. M36886 |