everyone for coming and thank our panelists for it very stimulating conversation. [applause] >> this event was hosted by the american enterprise institute in washington, d.c.. for more information visit aei.org. >> coming up, times out presents a history of tories in the american revolution. celko clinton loyalist to the british crown, the tory stronghold of new york and philadelphia, the civil war that took place among the american populace, and the migration of 80,000 tories, most of them left for canada. thomas allen presents his book at the library of congress in washington, d.c.. it's 40 minutes. >> i'm not supposed to have to plug the light of congress, but it's inevitable. a few years ago i got a call

from a story at the cia whom i admit when i've been working on george washington book about intelligence in the revolutionary war. and he says the library of congress is something you might be interested in. call this number. i thought wow, maybe the cia really does -- just like in the '70s of the condor, people reading books all time. weld county wasn't quite that. what had happened was the library had got a manuscript that had been written by a tory in connecticut during the revolution, who is under house arrest for his tory thoughts. and he decided he would write his own history of america, particularly the revolution. and his name was constant tiffani. and in a manuscript, he gives a

look at why he was a tory, he is kind of folded into some other areas in the revolution. well, the point about was i found it by here. and it was that i found it but it was found for me, which is what happens. this is a wonderful place to work. that was one of the objects that started me going on the book. i haven't edited one time as a don't tell me how you got the story, just write the story and turn it in. and i usually follow that, but there are some really good elvis do. i also was about to say interesting, but i had another editor says no. i tell you it was something interesting. you don't tell me. so anyhow, i started looking around at the idea of a book on the tories, but i dismissed the

idea because john agan said that you can't write a good -- history of the american revolution because certain records are absolutely missing, they don't exist. and one was the records showing why the tories became tories, and what the british were doing to encourage the existence of a tory element in the american colonies. and the other set of records that he said were impossible to find where the records of what the rebels did to the tories. and that's kind of an intriguing, because he just sort of leaves it there. well, i decided i would start doing some other things, and as abbey said, i coming here and find elements for it, but everything was sort of moving toward a book on somewhere in

the 18th century. i thought of the scots irish and again proposal, book proposal, and an editor who saw it said, well, this is all very interesting but why not do a book on the tories? that hasn't been one written in a long time. so that was it. and it did become a quest for records. and the records were all over the place. a lot of them here, a lot of them in canada because that's where a lot of the tories went. and there were in england and the records of in the state archives. there wasn't any country yet so they could have been much yet in the national archives, but in the state archives. for instance, in delaware, which was a bloodthirsty set of folders in what they call their treason file. because they declared that if you were a tory and you did anything that looked like is

going to be raising arms against the rebellion, you could be hanged. well, that was at the beginning of the discovery that one of the reasons we -- well, i was trying to find out why is it we don't know much about tories. i mean, i had read a lot about the 18th century and george washington and so forth. and i couldn't really understand why they were standing out there, and they weren't being covered. well, two things came to mind. one was, when we were in ilan, my wife and i, she as i sit in the talismans, her hand exactly are the impressions of xerox machines where we are copying documents. and i could see her hand into her hand was literally involved in the research of this book. we're in ireland and we met an irish historian come and i was

telling him about working on this subject and how little there was available, at least at first glance. and he said well, every country has a grand story. and they developed a grain store and things fall away and they go underground and they aren't seen but i think you're tories are probably there in the underground somewhere. that was a great insight. and any other thing i discovered was that there was tremendous brutal, vicious, bloody, atrocious fighting that went on in that underground. and nobody really likes to talk much about that either, tempering is a. so we started trying to find a way to get the idea across. and here's one exercise, which i found myself doing. i had written a book for young

adults on valley forge, and i sort of went back in my mind and said, okay, here's george washington and the remnants of the continental army starving to death, no shoes, dying and deserting by the dozens. and 20 miles away is philadelphia. and in philadelphia the occupying forces of the british army are having a grand time in. they are not starving to death. they're getting three meals a day. and more remarkably, when you put into it a little more you find that there's some eyewitness accounts of the british coming into philadelphia, the british army, congress had skedaddled a short time before. liberty hall is going to have a british flag flying over in a few minutes, and that's the british come into philadelphia, the streets are lined with

cheering people. when the british start settling in, some of these cheering people go to the british and say, would you like to know where the rebel leaders are? and they take the british around and the rebel leaders are put into a jail in philadelphia. well, that's the other side of valley forge, that the reason was there was a valley forge, recent survey was that there was a great deal of hesitation to openly support the continental army, and a lot of areas of america had a longtime during the revolution. and that was not much of this country, but it gave me a kind of insight, and i started looking at things a little more deeply. and it turned out that so many loyalists, by some estimates, 80,000, and other estimates 100,000, somewhere in that range

left the united states of america because they were tories. they called themselves loyalis loyalists, but we called them tories. we americans do and that's a funny thing to say. i realized very early in the game i couldn't use the word americans very easily in this book because everybody is an american. if you go back to about 1760, everybody is a tory, essentially. they are all british subjects. they are seeing the king as the man whom they're going to worship every sunday, as most of them were. they are anglicans. they prayed for the king. and the wherewithal, there's a one trading partner, that england. and that's the way things were. but as the revolution started to percolate and the sons of italy

-- sons of italy, wow. [laughter] where am i? the sons of liberty started functioning in boston and in new york, things started to change. and a group started to question the revolution. for a while it was a political debate. i came across a club that was formed in plymouth in -- it was formed in 1770 or 71, got to look it up, it's in the book, it is called the old colony club. it was founded primarily by descendents of passengers on the mayflower. i mean, there isn't a better american pedigree than to say you're descended from mayflower. well, a lot of people to send

from mayflower and the generation of the revolution were tories. well, they formed a club, and they decided that they would celebrate the landing from the mayflower every year. they didn't call it thanksgiving, they just had to have a big dinner at the colony club. the old colony club. and by about the third year, there are people in the club who are starting to think i want to be a tory, i want to be a rebel. and what happens final is the sons of liberty in 1774 or 75, say that there isn't going to be any more colonies or colony club in plymouth. we are going to take that stone that the pilgrims said they stepped on, no proof of it by the way, but there was a stone

then there was a steppingstone. supposedly there were people who said i'm descended from the woman who so attached to that stone, and she was brave enough to come ashore. so they took the stone and got a lot of oxen and strong lads in plymouth, and they started lifting the stone into a cart. idea what they're going to take it to the center of plymouth and, under what was then a liberty bowl, flying from a liberty bowl is he one of several five that represent the revolution or and when they take the stone out, it splits. and they let one part in the ocean into the other part in the plymouth. and that was the first idea, they talk about that splitting a stone because they were seeing what was going on.

go back to tiffany's manuscript, he is very outraged by the revolution. on religious grounds. he says that the sabbath is being violated again and again by the rebels. that were the only been good, there is no people. pcs the moral and and religious basis for the pick of the people saw other reasons, and i felt i could really go into the reasons that much because there seem to be an individual reason for each person. the other thing is that there was a historian and early 19th century who was trying to round up information about the loyalists, and he produced biographies of hundreds of them. on and he said he wished he could have done more, but that

if you had been defeated in a revolution, if your land has been taken away, if you have terrorized people and you have been terrorized yourself, you don't do much writing about your experience. well, there was a journal that i came across right here by a man named stephen jargon. stephen tells -- he writes a journal. his immaturity, but he starts it with, the first news coming in from lexington and concorde, which is a danbury, connecticut, a few days after the shot heard round the world. and he's an 18 year-old kid, and he decides, he has a girlfriend, named amelia, and he joins the rebel militia. the rebel militia, the captain

of the rebel militia is one of his uncles. his father is a tory. his father throws it out of the house. he said to me by the arm and threw me out of the house. so we stayed in the rebel militia for a short time, and then thinks better of it. on and he does something that hundreds of people of young men and some families did eventually, if you look at what happens early in the revolution, when the continental army loses the battle of long island, long island becomes a stronghold for tories. it's a magnet for anybody who lives on the other side of long island sound, all the little towns along the shoreline are called tori towns by the rebels. because all you have to do is

get in the boat and row or sail across long island sound, due to long island and the british will welcome you with open arms and you'll find yourself among friends. so hundreds of people go across, and one of them is stephen. when he gets there, steven jarvis in lists and the americas -- i'm sorry, the queens rangers. queens rangers is one of 150 or more, at least 150 military units formed i tories, to fight, not just debate, fight other americans who are rebels. and if you follow stephen's journal, one of the first remark will things about it is the journal is called an americans

experience in the british army. he's not in the british army. he's in a tory army unit that was formed by tories in new york, and he will fight alongside or independent of the british army. but it's not the british army. but just like what happened with tiffany's manuscript, the manuscript for jarvis is a journal was found in a trashcan and published in 1907. in 1907, we didn't want to think of the revolution as anything but the revolution. and we couldn't use the term civil war because we had had a north-south real civil war only a generation before. so the whole term civil war kind of goes away, and so does the idea of tories. well anyway, jarvis goes to war.

he fights and battles all the way from new jersey down to georgia and florida. he kills americans, and writes about it. well, when the war ends, he's been in a tory regiment, and have seen plenty of battle for seven years. he comes back to denver -- danbury, connecticut, wearing his green loyalist uniform. the loyalists frequently when they got outfitted by whoever recruited them wore green uniforms to distance themselves from the red coats. so he walks into danbury, and expects he's going to marry amelia. and then they will settle down in danbury. when you read that journal, you say wait a minute, steven, this isn't going to happen.

they decide what they're going to do is have a relative who is an anglican clergyman that he will have the clergyman marry them in the local anglican church. what stephen doesn't know is all the anglican churches were closed during the revolution because anglicans started their services by pray for the king. and if you're praying for the transit you could wind up in jail or maybe under house arrest like consider tiffany, or there was also a compromise up in connecticut. if you went down a couple hundred feet into the coppermine, google sells there and you might wind up there. so he comes back to danbury and finds that the anglican church is closed. they get themselves a minister, and he marries them. and a mob comes to the house. he talks the mob down, and then the next day, the day after his

wedding, the local sheriff crashes into the bridal chamber and says get out of town. what he didn't know is that if you had taken arms against the rebels, and you are from connecticut, you are subject to treason and hanging. so eventually he and his wife, they try to stick it out as long as they can, but they finally go to canada with their infant child. and when i started looking at the canadian exodus, what's happening is the british want the loyalists to stay here, but the loyalists start to feel the urge to get out. and one reason that they want to get out is because they are losing their land. the confiscation of land was

consistent through the revolution. every one of the states pass some kind of a lot about confiscation. and there were also laws that were charging them with treason. well, what they do is go to canada, because the british see the benefit of getting a group of english-speaking british subjects up into canada to counteract those people in québec who are catholic and speak french. so all any of what is now nova scotia and new brunswick becomes the homeland of the people who left america. and they are given axis access, army rations, some kids in some cases, lumber in other cases, told to cut down the trees and

stars from communities. which they do. they are very proud of it today. if you are a descendent of one of the loyalists who came up there, you can put a uv after your name. that united empire that have helped preserve the empire. and if you want to know what the tories wanted, and what their intention was, if they had one, just look at canada. that whole steadfast character that we talked about in canada, the canadian study that came from the fact that they were founded by non-revolution is, people who really kept their heads about them, and they had gone up and started the kind of country that they wished we had down here. parliament, constitutional monarchy, and freedom of speech, all the little things we have. if we look to canada as kind of

cousins, now you can look at canada as even more so. these are the people who didn't want revolution, and the people he didn't want a revolution, pretty obvious who won. but i think that one of the legacies that the tories have become a legacy we can feel sort of tremors about today, that no matter what you do, there is dissent, and some cases of violent, bloody murderous dissent inside we the people. and the first generation of politicians in america, supposedly learned that. and i guess the lesson continues till today. so that's the tories. on kind of a philosophical point. may be some questions about the blood and the hangings. [applause]

>> of the hundred some thousand that left, and a lot of them came back. do you have any idea how many came back? >> no. what happens is you can see references, first of all, there's a little matter of the war of 1812. a lot of the sons of loyalists come across the border, and if we had the roster of who burned washington, i think we would find some names, some of their names among them. so once you get the war of 1812, which essentially new england said we are not interested. new england, the war of 1812 refused to say militia. so in new england, yeah, they're coming back. they are coming back to what? they're coming back to not having their farms anymore. they have to start it all over again. but you find references of the

son of a tory marrying the daughter of a rebel, and vice versa. so it starts to recover ,-comcome in particular there was a lot of celebration of this in massachusetts particularly. here's the center of it all and becomes the center of reconciliation. there's no retribution to speak of. we are not the french revolution. and a safety valve really turned out to be candid i think. if there had been a candidate company, we would still be in revolution probably. >> my recollection is, i take it all these other things were going on constantly. >> yeah, yeah. the tories here and there, particularly, one example,

william franklin, the son of ben franklin had been the royal governor of new jersey, and he is arrested and put in jail. he escapes and he winds up in new york which was of course under british occupation throughout the war. and starts up a guerrilla organization, which is operating outside british control. british army is kind of upset about it. they do use the word terror, and they write r on the house meaning rebel. this is basically integers but it gets to be called neutral ground because there will be any armies there but there are loyalists and rebels fighting each other on the guerrilla bases. so yeah, if you look at the

revolution, kind of microscopically, you see about 700 some odd battles and skirmishes, and 500 some, about 550 of them involve tory military units. the most dramatic one is in kings mountain on the north carolina, south carolina border where there are about 900 rebels who had been rounded up to fight a tory unit called the american legion, which is commanded by a british officer named ferguson at eventually a battle takes place. there are a thousand tories and 900 rebels, and win the battle is over the rebels when and its vicious. they will not honor the flag of surrender. they start hanging people.

and nobody on the field was anything but an american, except for one british officer. and it kind of to be symbolic of the fact that you can really talk about america and when you're writing in this war. you have to call them something because they are all americans. >> you mentioned the carolinas. the character of the valiant, more bloodthirsty? i remember reading about the regulating and so on. >> what the british really expected strategically that if they could take the south they could stop the revolution. it would just come in essentially all of the southern colonies would become british and it would start out or destroy the revolution. and they put great hope in the lists that were there. one of the problems they had was, they didn't do anything

strategically. the british army didn't want to cooperate very much with the tories, and there was a past, a class issue involved, in my opinion. the other thing that happened is very early in the war, the royal governor of virginia declared that any slave going over to the british would be given his or her freedom. and a lot of those former slaves went to fight for the british. a lot of them were called pioneers and they will build fortifications and do jobs, but there was one regiment called the ethiopian regiment. and in front of the uniform instead of freedom for slaves. and so this dampened southern loyalist them, especially by the ruling class. because they were seeing so many slaves