A loyalist was a Tory who had stayed loyal to George the third and opposed to Americans in their Independence. " A Tory is a thing whose head is in England, and its body in America, and its neck ought to be stretched" was Wallace Browns definition of a loyalist. By far the most significant contribution of the Loyalists during the American Revolution was on the battlefield. Loyalists, in one form or another, served in virtually every engagement of war. Loyalists also were the group that lost the most during the war. .
American history has traditionally regarded the Tories as traitors and the rebels as heroes during the American Revolution. Few have realized why so many remained loyal to the king and under what condition they made their choice.
The rebels thought Tories were the most ignorant amongst them. The dignity of Great Britain and the supremacy of Parliament, "we are only surprised that while there are still some men who preside in you national synod who are above corruption, that the promoters and supporters of such new fangled doctrines escaped being impeached of treason against the constitution which we Americans look upon as the first and most dangerous species of rebellion." This was a quote from a Philadelphia rebel as he speaks for America in 1776.
The loyalists brought the country to a sate of civil war, where in family fought against family, brother against brother. The mismanagement and middling on the part of the British was an important outcome of the war. If the British supplied the loyalists with effective leadership the United States might still be a crown colony. .
The British were away from their homeland. The ocean separated the colonies from Great Britain. It took a long time for the information to go back and forth. The British Government thought the Americans were much weaker and they thought they would get help from the uprising of the Loyalists but they never came.
