The Forces in Conflict 151
wound up in both camps. Debtors had reason to object to British attempts, over
the previous half century, to limit paper money in America and stop inflation; but
people do not always act from reason, and indebtedness in any case was scarcely a
class phenomenon, since it was characteristic of the free- spending southern aris-
tocracy, the businessmen in the towns, and farmers whose land was mortgaged, as
well as of such actually poor people as may have been able to borrow any money.
Religion of the Calvinist type was a force working against England, but the Pres-
byterians of the Carolina frontier, not eager to be governed by their own gentry,
supplied many soldiers to the King. National origin had no general influence, for
the Middle Colonies, the least English in origin, were stronger centers of loyalism
than New England or the South. The young men, if we may judge by the infini-
tesimal proportion who were in the colleges, were ardently patriot. The colleges,
from Harvard to William and Mary, were denounced by loyalists as hotbeds of
sedition.
An obvious explanation, quite on the surface, is as good as any: that the patriots
were those who saw an enlargement of opportunity in the break with Britain, and
the loyalists were in large measure those who had benefited from the British con-
nection, or who had organized their careers, and their sense of duty and usefulness,
around service to the King and empire. These would include the American- born
governors, Thomas Hutchinson in Massachusetts and William Franklin in New
Jersey. There were also the families that customarily sat on the governors’ councils
or held honorific or lucrative offices under the crown. There were some in the ris-
ing American upper class who admired the way of life of the aristocracy in En-
gland, and who would imitate it as best they could.^19 Such was surely their right as
British subjects, but it might alienate them from Americans generally, even many
of the upper class, who were willing to have social distinctions in America develop
in a new way.
It is estimated that from half to two- thirds of those who had sat on the gover-
nors’ councils became loyalists.^20 For New Jersey we know exactly what happened.
Of the twelve members of the provincial council in 1775, five became active and
zealous loyalists, two became cautious or neutral loyalists, one went into retirement
for age, and four became revolutionaries, one of whom made his peace with the
British when he thought they were going to win.^21 Massachusetts had as few loyal-
ists as any province, but when the British troops evacuated Boston in 1776 they
took over 1,100 civilians with them. Of these, 102 had been councillors or officials
and 18 were clergymen, mainly Anglican; but 382 were farmers, 213 were mer-
chants “and others,” and 105 came from country towns.^22 The rest were probably
women and children. Like the émigrés from the French Revolution, the émigrés
from America came from all classes. But those connected with the English gov-
ernment or English church, and identifying themselves with English society and
19 See, for example, C. Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1776 ( N.Y.,
1955), 348–52.
20 L. W. Labaree, Conservatism in Early American History (N.Y., 1948), 147.
21 Lundin, op. cit., 76–91.
22 L. Sabine, American Loyalists, or Biographical Sketches of Adherents to the British Crown...
(Boston, 1847), 13.