tinued their reign of terror until the close of the

war.

During the first two years of the war the southern frontier was ravaged by Indians who were incited and aided by American friends of the king. In the Northwest, too, the Tories were of great service in keeping the British control of that region until, in 779, George Rogers Clark defeated Colonel Hamilton and his loyalist soldiers.'

In a manner less conspicuous than these struggles on the frontier the loyalists became an important factor in the war. When Howe came to New York he overcame their aversion to joining the regular army by bounties and pay which they much needed in their destitute condition, and thus increased his army by thousands of loyalists. Tryon, the exiled governor of New York, was made major-general of the loyal provincial forces; and when Parliament, in 1779, provided that provincial officers should take rank as juniors of the rank to which they belonged, the service with the regular troops became popular. New York alone furnished about fifteen thousand men to the British army and navy.'

Many loyalists did not like this regular service, however, and in 1778 the refugees in New York began to form companies of loyal militia in which the recruits might choose their own leaders. Promi

1 Ill. Hist. Col., I., 400, 401.

'Van Tyne, Loyalists, 168; Rivington's Gazette, May 19, 1779; Flick, Loyalism in New York, 112.

、nent men among them urged repeatedly that they arm against their "cruel and inveterate enemies, the rebels." So many appeared at the musters and the drills of the loyal militia that it was said with pride, and believed, that the whole number of loyalists mustered on one of these occasions exceeded Washington's Continental army.' In January, 1780, the strength of the loyal militia in New York was estimated at five thousand eight hundred and fifty-five men. In addition to the fifteen thousand regulars, New York furnished about eight thousand loyal militia.

The

Another resource of the loyalists was privateering, which had been discouraged by the British government while there was hope of conciliating America. When that hope was gone, ready sanction was given to this means of making war a greater curse. refugees were allured by every device to enlist in this enterprise. They were, to quote the advertisements, to have "a chance to repair their losses at the expense of their perfidious enemies." The direction of the enterprise was soon intrusted to a board of directors, principal loyalists from each American province, who approved of the officers before they received commissions.

Both by land and sea these refugees from the

1 Van Tyne, Loyalists, 172.

2 Rivington's Gazette, January 29, 1780.

N. Y. Colonial MSS., VIII., 740-764; Rivington's Gazette, November 27, 1779.

persecutions of their fellow-countrymen began to retaliate upon those who had driven them from their homes and who were already confiscating loyal property to help pay the expenses of war. The British government ruled that they should plunder "rebels" only, and that they might hold what they seized. Prisoners taken by them were to be exchanged for captured loyalists. In a word, they were licensed to prey upon the land and the sea, "to prowl for their own living," as the Whig papers put it, "and maintain their families by plunder and robbery."

The land forces, leaving the British lines for a few hours, would dash into the enemy's country, up the Hudson, into "indigo Connecticut," or over to New Jersey, and drive off horses and cattle, kidnap the Whig owners, and in some cases leave a village in ruin and desolation.' Every farmer lived in fear of the Tories "lurking in the woods," and measured his loss not only by the amount of which he was robbed, but by the harvests which he dared not gather, and which lay rotting in the fields. Committeemen and members of the state legislatures were kept in terror by the occasional capture of one of their number and horrible stories of his fate. Jails were emptied and burned, and many Tories thus liberated. In spite of the efforts of the Whig governments to terrify these marauders by hanging

1 Van Tyne, Loyalists, 175; N. J. Archives, ad series, I., II.; Index under Raids" and "Tories."