Among the the American political and military leaders for the Loyalist cause, they were mostly evacuated to England. Among them were Oliver Delancey, a leader of one of the two main political factions in the New York Assembly before the war, who spent the war as a military commander; the Governor of New Jersey William Franklin, who was Benjamin Franklin's son; New Jersey Attorney General Cortlandt Skinner; and Governor of Georgia James Wright. Probably the most famous of all is the Patriot-turned-Redcoat military leader Benedict Arnold. All these men were exiled to England in the late stages of the war, where each of them died.

Many other Loyalists and their families also left the country, either by force of their communities, or voluntarily. All the new U.S. states both during and after the war gathered lists of prominent Loyalist civilian leaders and military men who were to be exiled. All the states also had passed Confiscation Laws, which allowed the state governments to take possession of the real estate and personal property of people found to be guilty of giving aid or comfort to the enemy. As a result, many Loyalists lost everything they owned. As repayment, then, the British government would grant these men or their families land for their war service, in remaining British possessions in the Americas. One of the primary destinations was Canada.

Around 80,000 to Loyalist men, women, and children arrived in Canada between the end of the Revolution and the beginning of the War of 1812, most of them coming before 1800. Some 30,000 Loyalists are said to have arrived in Nova Scotia in 1783 alone. The head of the British war effort, Sir Guy Carleton, spent most of that year arranging transportation for fleeing Loyalists to evacuate the United States, in the months ahead of the peace treaty going into effect.

The infrastructure in Canada at that time was nearly non-existent, outside of Halifax, and Quebec (and these English-speaking refugees were nearly all resettled in the eastern provinces that weren't Quebec--only about 2,000 of the initial influx of 40,000 went to the French province, with another ~8,000 going to Ontario). There were barely even any roads, and the few that were passable were "very thinly scattered" and very inconvenient for the settlers." There were few stores, and even fewer mills.

"By 1784," wrote William Stewart Wallace in United Empire Loyalists: A Chronicle of the Great Migration, "nearly all the settlers were destitute and completely dependent on the generosity of the British government. They had no effects; they had no money; and in many cases they were sorely in need of clothes."

Sir Leonard Tilley, born after the refugee crisis and later to become a member of Canadian Parliament, would record a story from his grandmother, who was among these American refugees. He recalled being told of her first memory upon landing in Nova Scotia:

"I climbed to the top of Chipman's Hill and watched the sails disappearing in the distance, and such a feeling of loneliness came over me that, although I had not shed a tear through all the war, I sat down on the damp moss with my baby in my lap and cried."

As the refugees continue to pour into Nova Scotia through the winter months of 1783-84, the province's governor John Parr wrote to British minister Lord North, describing the dire situation. It was too late in the year for new arrivals to set up in the wintry countryside, and so the government was tasked with providing for them within the crowded town of Halifax, with little in the way of provisions to give out:

"...[A] considerable number of Refugee families [have recently arrived], who must be provided for in and about the town at extraordinary expence as at this season of the year I cannot send them into the country...I cannot better describe the wretched condition of these people than by inclosing your lordship a list of those just arrived in the Clinton transport, destitute of almost everything, chiefly women and children, all still on board, as I have not yet been able to find any sort of place for them, and the cold setting in severe."

An unnamed Loyalist from Long Island echoed the sentiment in a letter written back to relatives in New YorK:

"All our golden promises are vanished in smoke. We were taught to believe this place was not barren and foggy as had been represented, but we find it ten times worse. We have nothing but his Majesty's rotten pork and unbaked flour to subsist on...It is the most inhospitable clime that ever mortal set foot on."

A Philadelphia newspaper wrote in 1783 that this was the common consensus of the Loyalists in Canada:

"Many of the refugees who have settled at Port Roseway [in Nova Scotia] have wrote their friends in New York by no means to come to that place."

Loyalist military officer Joshua Chandler from Connecticut wrote in July 1783 that he expected the refugees to turn tail back to the U.S. within three months, because "Nova Scotia is not the place for Happiness".

Sir Guy Carleton concurred that Canada was not very hospitable, writing that he believed most of those early Canadian refugees would have "quit the country" if it were not for the fear of "violence they conceive they have so much cause to apprehend" by the Patriots should they try to return to the United States.

Even so, some of them did risk the Patriot wrath, rather than go on living in the Canadian wilderness, often forced to live with their families in cramped homes with their parents or other relatives who had not had their land confiscated.

This was only exacerbated by poor weather--even poorer than usual by Canadian standards--which the ex-Americans were not used to nor prepared for. A couple of the first winters after the end of the war were particularly cold and brutal, and with the fall harvest of 1787, the crops failed. This led to a scarcity of food for the next full year. The period from mid-1787 to mid-1788 came to be known in Canada variously as the "Hungry Year," or the "Scarce Year," and many more Loyalists returned to the United States.

Henry Ruttan, later a member of Canadian Parliament, recalled the experiences in this "Year of Scarcity" that his parents endured shortly before his birth:

"We had the luxury of a cow which the family brought with them, and had it not been for this domestic boon, all would have perished in the year of scarcity. The crops had failed the year before, and the winter that followed, was most inclement and severe. The snow was unusually deep, so that the deer became an easy prey to their rapacious enemies, the wolves, who fattened on their destruction, whilst men were perishing for want. Five individuals, in different places, were found dead, and one poor woman also, with a live infant at her breast; which was cared for and protected."

As the 1790s dawned, the situation began to improve, though it wasn't until around the War of 1812 that any of these British Canadian communities in the Maritime Provinces or in Ontario would have comparable conveniences to their American neighbors to the south.

Of the Loyalists who were allowed to stay in the United States, survival wasn't so precarious as it was in Canada, but their financial situation was. Most lost all their wealth. Through the 1790 U.S. Census, there were still many Loyalists living together with family members who once owned separate land, often forcing multiple families to make due with land that really was only enough to accommodate the diet and well-being of one. It took a decade or more for Loyalists to earn enough to buy an adequate farm and once again strike out on their own.

The Loyalist men were also barred from voting, and holding public office. They, like everyone else, had to denounce loyalty to the British crown and take an oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress and, later, to the U.S. Constitution if they wanted to stay.

Of those who did not go to Canada to make land claims, many left their communities to claim land out West with the opening of settlement in the Northwest territory in 1785-87. Patriots got the pick of the land, though, as Congress offered free land grants to former U.S. soldiers in repayment for services rendered. In fact, some Loyalists who could endure it, actually went to Canada first to make their legal land claim there, spent the minimum amount of time there for the government to recognize the grant as valid (usually five years), then sold it to one of the several real estate speculators buying up land. They then used these profits to buy more desirable land in the Midwestern United States.

(cont'd...)