It was
agreed that the privilege should be granted to any person to go into
and remain twelve months in any part of the United States to regain
his property by law. The treaty provided further that Congress would
recommend to the States the restoration of all property to former
owners upon payment of the bona fide price which the present possessors
paid for it after confiscation. The treaty also implicitly promised
that there should be no more confiscations or prosecutions. The several
provisions for the alleviation of these Loyalists indicate slightly
the misfortunes into which their action brought them. Their treatment
both officially and by the mob has been described by some foreign
writers as the darkest page in American history. But they had choice
of sides in the issue. Granted that they supposed they were right in
upholding government against rebellion; yet the law of consequences
accepts no excuse for over-conservatism. He who fails to keep step
with the march of events falls behind and suffers the consequences.
The Loyalists were on the losing side and suffered the common fate of
the conquered.
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