20 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The enlisted lefugees at Sorel, Vorchcres, St. Our^, Chambl}^, and 

 St. Johns were numeric-ally a less constant factor than their unmilitary 

 brethren, and especially the loyalist women and their families. The 

 men belonging to the loyalist corps at these and the neighboring 

 posts were constantly called into requisition for scouting, secret ser- 

 vice, and recruiting parties. Such service had its peculiar temp- 

 tations, especially towards the end of the war, for complaint was 

 made of a disposition among the loyalist soldiers to desert; and Haldi- 

 mand found it necessary, in the spring of 1783, to forbid officers to 

 send parties of them into the colonies without the special permission 

 of the commander-in-chief, and he also warned the loyalists them- 

 selves that any who should presume to leave the province without 

 permission would be deemed deserters and punished accordingly.* 



That the families of those who withdrew from uncongenial soil 

 accompanied them in many cases, or were led out at an early oppor- 

 tunity in other cases, there can be no doubt, f In numerous other 

 instances, however, families of refugee loyalists were brought into 

 Canada under flags of truce, a system that was in operation on Lake 

 Champlain from the fall of 1778, if not earlier. This method made 

 practicable the exchange of dependents and prisoners of war, and 

 was regularly employed throughout the remainder of the contest. As 

 the British were in control of the lake, their vessels and batteaux 

 were in constant requisition for the conveyance of aggregations of 

 families from Pointe au Fer, Mill Bay, Skenesborough, Crown Point, 

 and other convenient places to St. Johns, whence they were sent under 

 guidance to various localities to join husbands and fathers from 

 whom they had been separated by the exigencies of war. We hear 

 of the arrival of Messrs. Campbell and Stevens at St. Johns about 

 September 20, 1778, under a flag of truce with a loyalist party of 

 eighteen, partly made up of their own families. % Three days later, a 

 number of families arrived from Albany and the Connecticut River, 

 and were at once placed in charge of scouts to be conducted to Sorel.* 

 About the middle of the following July a similar group, who had re- 

 cently come under flag to St. Johns from Bennington, in southwestern 

 Vermont, were sent to join their connections, some of whom were in 

 the immediate neighborhood, the others being at Sorel.* Once more, 

 about September 1, St. Johns served as a gateway to Canada for loyal- 



*Haldinuin(l Papers, B. 139, pp. 368, 421; unsigned letter to Gen. Riesedel, 

 Dec. 9, 1782; llaldimand to Riosedol, Mar. 13, 1783. 



fSecond Report, Rureau of Archives, Ont., Pt. I, 86, 329, 444, 



jCan. Arch., 1887, 338. 



* Ibid. 



» Ibid., 344. 



