They distrusted what
Seabury called "our sovereign Lord the Mob." They represented, in
John Adams's opinion, nearly one-third of the people of the
colonies, and recent students believe that this estimate was too
low. In some colonies the Loyalists were clearly in the majority.
In all they were a menacing element, made up of the conservative,
the prosperous, the well-educated, with a mixture, of course, of
mere placemen and tuft-hunters. They composed weighty pamphlets,
eloquent sermons, and sparkling satire in praise of the old order
of things. When their cause was lost forever, they wrote gossipy
letters from their exile in London or pathetic verses in their
new home in Nova Scotia and Ontario. Their place in our national
life and literature has never been filled, and their talents and
virtues are never likely to receive adequate recognition. They
took the wrong fork of the road.
There were gentle spirits, too, in this period, endowed with
delicate literary gifts, but quite unsuited for the clash of
controversy--members, in Crevecoeur's touching words, of the
"secret communion among good men throughout the world.
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