In message , "Keith Willshaw" wrote:

Its hardly likely since Washington himself and so served however
many so called loyalists who sided with the British during
the war of Independence were indeed punished, in fact
many fled to Canada

Captured loyalists were treated like any other prisoners of war
(captured deserters who subsequently enlisted in the British Army are
an entirely different matter-though the fact many did so under duress
certainly muddled matters). Few were punished. Of those that "fled"
after the war, they did so primarily because they considered
themselves British and not Americans so chose to live under British
rule rather than American governance. Few fled for their safety.
Some 80,000 (high end estimate) loyalists were deemed to have "fled,"
but another estimated 400,000 remained. Few were mistreated, and it
was quite common for Continental officers, e.g., to marry loyalists
or, at the very least, women from nominally loyalist families during
and after the war (B. Arnold was not all that exceptional in that
regard). Most of the really-bad-mistreatment of loyalists came in the
tit-for-tats in areas where governmental control had been lost; the
southern states and the Mohawk Valley etc. Even of the 80,000 or so
"refugees" only 3,000 or so submitted property loss claims to HMG and
of these, only about 2/3 were considered legit. While the treatment
of loyalists was less than spectacular in many instances, it was not
the wholesale persecution that British (and by inheritance, Canadian)
propoganda made it out to be then and ever since. In general,
Americans were treated much worse at the hands of the British (but
again not as bad as propaganda has made it out to be).

I understand your point vis a vis "turncoats," but your description of
the treatment of the loyalists is somewhat exaggerated.

--
Regards,

Michael P. Reed