The result has been to depict loyalism as a vertical cross section, rather than a horizontal segment, of American society, with the addition that loyalism generally predominated among recent immigrants and cultural minorities who valued royal government as protection against discrimination by local majorities.
Articulate Loyalists
Revolutionary governments found it as difficult as modern historians to distinguish between loyalists and Whig "patriots." High profile, outspoken loyalists, such as royal governors, imperial officials, and clergy of the Church of England who clung to their oaths to God and king and who profited from their appointments were not hard to spot and to neutralize. Equally vulnerable were provincial elites, politicians, lawyers, overseas merchants, who openly expressed their convictions that rebellion against the powerful British government could never succeed, and if by chance it did, Americans would fall victim to republican anarchy which would, in turn, open the way to a French-imposed despotism far worse than anything suffered under Great Britain. Collectively, government officials and outspoken opponents of revolution constituted the most prominent of the 80,000 to 100,000 loyalists who eventually fled from the Revolution to other parts of the empire (Brown, 192).
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