New Brunswick: The loyalists and the historians

New Brunswick: the loyalists and the historians A. E. MORRISON The history of the New Brunswick Loyalists still awaits the historian who is free. That is to say, the historian who is unhampered by a deep emotional commitment and by preconceived ideas of what took place arising out of that commitment ; the historian who is free from the smugness and assuredness of the superiority of his own times, and able to see the Loyalist in his own setting and treat with him on his own terms. Even a very brief survey of what has been said by historians thus far makes this readily apparent and suggests that there is a need for a review of the primary sources, and possibly a new approach. Consider what has been said of Loyalism as a body of belief. As far as historians are concerned, their view of it is often vague and impressionistic . Early writers have treated the Loyalists as honourable and virtuous people. In Fisher's words they were "genuine patriots who sacrificed their property and comfort in the United States for their attachment to that [British] Government , and came to this Province to transmit those blessings to their posterity."1 They had been faced with the choice of foresake[ing] their homes or abandon[ing] their King ... and the choice was made with promptness [and] ... perservered in with constancy."2 Loyalism in Hathaway's writing is seen as the fulfillment of a Christian duty, a duty which meant "continuing in subjection to the existing authorities."3 Thus the Loyalists were not persuaded by the "designing demagogues . . . [who were] more desirous of change than contented or willing to be industrious and trumpeted forth the happiness of imaginary liberty, and declaiming loudly against the Government of Great Britain."4 On the contrary they "preserved their character as Christians, and their duty as parents and good subjects."5 Cloony also was convinced that by remaining loyal they "were able to preserve their principles [and] sacrificed everything to their Journal of Canadian Studies duty."6 He tried much harder, however, to define what it was the Loyalist held so dear. He expressed it as "the precious pearl of political integrity [that] was theirs, and their also [was] the exalted dignity of citizenship to an English King."7 The attachment to the King and the maintenance of citizenship (the practical implication of which is not explained) appears, however, to be only a part of Loyalism. If one wishes to get the complete concept of Loyalism and how it related to New Brunswick, it is necessary to study the work of more recent writers. This is paradoxical perhaps, but strangely enough the early historians, some like Fisher who were Loyalists themselves, could not or would not express the ideals of Loyalism. Later historians have not been quite so reticent on this question. Professor MacNutt's work reveals a fairly definite impression, at least, if not a complete concept , of what comprised the Loyalist ideology. His understanding is better described as a definite impression, for we find him reluctant to really "spin out" in one place his interpretation of Loyalism. The reader has to collect the numerous short references to the ideals of the Loyalists and pull them together into one complete statement of his understanding of the ideals which characterized the Loyalists who came to New Brunswick. The principal problem in understanding Loyalism through Professor MacNutt's work is that he provides the reader with only one half of the concept. He does not explain why a part of the American Colonials chose to be Loyalists nor in what way they differed from their fellow Colonials. The reader is not told what was so peculiar to Loyalist ideals, initially, that made it impossible and undesirable for them to stay in the Thirteen Colonies. What was there in their attitudes or values that made them repulsive to their neighbours? What made the new system created by the revolution so repulsive to the Loyalist? The absence of the background, this understanding of the American Revolution, is characteristic of all the historians with the possible exception of one who explicitly mentions the Loyalist "detestation of Republicanism." All 39 40 IMPORTANT...