' In connection
with these associations there sprang up local committees.
From garrets, cellars, rushing through the street,
The new-born statesmen in committee meet,
sang a Loyalist verse-writer. Very soon there was completed
an organization, stretching from the Continental Congress
and the provincial congresses at one end down to the
pettiest parish committees on the other, which was destined
to prove a most effective engine for stamping out loyalism,
and which was to contribute in no small degree to the
success of the Revolution.
Though the action of the mob never entirely disappeared,
the persecution of the Tories was taken over, as soon as
the Revolution got under way, by this semi-official
organization. What usually happened was that the Continental
or provincial Congress laid down the general policy to
be followed, and the local committees carried it out in
detail. Thus, when early in 1776 the Continental Congress
recommended the disarming of the Tories, it was the local
committees which carried the recommendation into effect.
During this early period the conduct of the revolutionary
authorities was remarkably moderate. They arrested the
Tories, tried them, held them at bail for their good
behaviour, quarantined them in their houses, exiled them
to other districts, but only in extreme cases did they
imprison them.
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