The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy Book 1)

by Rick Atkinson

The final toast was drunk to “civil and religious liberty to all mankind”—all mankind, that is, except Tories. Civil liberty for loyalists had become another rare commodity. Throughout the colonies, partisan belligerence increased as the insurgency metastasized into a civil war. Congress had resolved that anyone in America who professed allegiance to King George was “guilty of treason.” Rhode Island required males over sixteen suspected of “being inimical to the united American colonies” to swear an oath of allegiance; those who resisted could be fined and disenfranchised. Connecticut law now punished “inimicals” who defamed Congress with fines and imprisonment. Loyalists could be barred from traveling, running a tavern, or operating a ferry; their property could be taxed at double normal rates. Loyalist teachers, lawyers, doctors, and apothecaries had trouble keeping their jobs or their clients. Blacksmiths in Massachusetts refused to shoe the horses of suspected inimicals. Some were tarred and feathered, and in one case a loyalist’s horse got the same treatment for good measure. For a brief period in June 1776, mail to or from anyone in Albany whose last name began with “Mc” was examined, apparently on the theory that the Scots and Irish were especially suspect. A mob threw rocks at loyalist women on Cape Cod; Rhode Island outlawed prayers for the king. One New Yorker wrote that for those still true to the Crown or simply indifferent to rebellion, “taciturnity is the gre...