Stephen Harding wrote:
Brian Sharrock wrote:


Slight semantic problem; the loyalists(sic) _were_ British.
They didn't 'side with' the British, they were British, remained
British and refused to follow the rebellious smugglers, slave-owners,
land-owner and lawyer clique into an armed French-funded
insurrection. History _does_ record that they were treated badly
by the revolting colonists.


So is this the current Euro spin on the American Revolution?

Just a bunch of criminal, low life types, cajoled by the perfidious
French, into breaking away from "The Empire", where most wanted to
stay?
My, my how the politics of anti-Americanism spins its web.

It is the historical record, not current spin
See for example

http://www.uelac.org/loyalist.pdf

FWIW the only part of my family heritage that is not Irish traces back
through a Nova Scotia German family with Hessian connections from the
revolutionary war.

"The Romkey (Ramichen or Ramge) family came to Halifax, Nova Scotia in
1750 from the village on Nieder-Klingen in Odenwald region of the
Palatinate. The family has its origins in the neighbouring village of
Spachbrücken in the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt. Johann Wendel
Ramichen or Ramge, his wife Anna Margaretha Uhrig, and their children
spent three winters in Halifax before moving to Lunenburg in 1753. The
family eventually settled at Five Houses on the LaHave River where Anna
Margaretha's brother had his 30-acre farm lot."
http://kenneth.paulsen.home.comcast....cotian_Fam.htm

Many loyalists and Hessian soldiers were settled in Nova Scotia after
the American revolution. See for example The Hessians of Nova Scotia:
The Personal Data Files of 225 Hessian Soldiers who Settled in Nova
Scotia by Johannes HelmutMerz. 1994

Vince