Existing comment:
Opposed to the Revolution
Loyalists were colonists who remained loyal to the British crown; they were called at the time Tories and Royalists. They numbered about 500,000 or 15 to 20 percent of the American population. Many were older, established, opposed violence, cautious, thought the war morally wrong, and feared that commerce and business would suffer outside the empire. They were subject to confiscation of property and public harassment.
John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, 1771-1776. |