Rise of the United Empire Loyalists: A Sketch of American History (Classic Reprint)

Rise of the United Empire Loyalists By the Viscount de Fronsac. INTRODUCTION. The United Empire Loyalists of the British Colonies in North America of all branches of the A ryan race: French, English, Dutch, German, whose posterity had settled in America are those who decided that as much of the empire in America as they were able to preserve in 1783 should be saved from republican revolution and democratic destruction. In the cases of many it was not affection for the British name and connection, since many were of different nationalities, but it was attachment to a constitutional and monarchial umpireship of affairs. In fact, many others, of the foremost royalists, were opposed in principle to the House of Hanover on the British throne, considering its right as resting on parliamentary usurpation rather than on the constitution. But they advanced nevertheless to sustain lthe principle of monarch which it represented in opposition to the leveling, unpatriotic and unconstitutional democracy to which it was opposed. The United Empire Loyalist position then is a dual one; first as a maintenance of the royalty and the classes represented in the ancient charters of the A nglo-A merican colonies, secondly as a defiance of parliamentary interference from Britain in the functions of the crown in the colonies a recognized protest that no ministers, committee or parliament in England shall stand between the king and royal and constitutional government in the colonies. But to understand this doctrine which is so vital to the history of Canada on the defence of which rests the integrity of its institutions and the treaties guaranteeing them, it is necessary to go to the very beginning, to the causes of the foundation of the A nglo-A merican colonies and to the elements which enter therein, on which these institutions in Canada are based and defended, against the doctrin
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