28 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



It is impossible to toll exactly how many persons altogether became 

 exiles. All the men who had taken an active part in the war, and were 

 consequently most hated by the successful revolutionists, certainly left 

 the United States. As we know that at the very least twenty-five 

 thousand men fought in the regular!}' organized royal regiments, w^e 

 may lairly estimate that between eighty and one hundred thousand men, 

 women and children, were forced to leave and scatter throughout the 

 world. Of this number, between thirty and forty thou.sand people 

 came to the provinces of the present Dominion. More than two-thirds 

 of the exiles settled in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick» 

 the remainder in the valley of the St. Lawrence. The British govern- 

 ment granted ])ccuniary compen.sation and lands to the Loyalists who 

 had suffered such great losses — almost irreparable in many cases— for 

 the sake of the empire. It took some years before the pecuniary 

 claims of the numerous applicants for aid could be investigated and 

 relief afforded. Many pei-sons felt all the mi.sery of " hope deferred." 

 In 1786 a writer stated that '• this delay of justice has produced the 

 most melancholy and shocking events." Eventually the exiles, who 

 made out their claims, were voted by i)arliaraent an allowance of nearly 

 sixteen millions of dollars ; others received considerable annuities, half 

 pay of military officers, large grants of lands, and offices in the provinces. 



In Nova Scotia, the principal settlements of the exiles were in the 

 present counties of Annapolis, Digby, Shelburne, and Guysboro'— so 

 named from Sir Guy Carleton — but a considerable number also found 

 homes in the old settled townships where the American Pre-Loyalists, 

 Irish, Germans and others had established themselves from 1749 until 

 1783.' Nearly all the men who came to Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 

 wick had served in the royal regiments of the old colonies. The condition 

 of many of the jjeoplo is described in 1783 by Governor Parr, of Nova 

 Scotia, as " most wretched." They were " destitute of almost everything, 

 chiefly women and children, all still on board the vessels," and he had not 

 been "able to rind a i)lace for them, though the cold was setting in very 

 severe." Rude huts wore erected for the temporary accommodation of 

 these unha])i»y [jeuple when all the available buildings were crowded. 

 At Shelburne, on the first arrival of sevei-al thou.sand exiles, chiefly from 

 New York, there were seen " lines of women sitting on the rocky shore, 

 and weeping at their altered condition." Some of these people, says 

 Sabine, tried to make merry at their doom, by saying that they were 

 " bound for a lovely country, where there are nine months' winter and 

 three months' cold weather every year" — .so little did they know of the 

 climate and resources of their new homos. 



' See Appendix H for Colonel Morse's " Return of disbanded Troops and Loyal- 

 ists, settling in the province of Nova Scotia, mustered in the sutnmier of 1784." 



