Jonathan Sewall; odyssey of an American loyalist
""Throughout his lifetime Sewall clung to his belief that, in an artificial conflict, he had taken the high ground of reason and duty. It was in this light that he interpreted his active role as a newspaper essayist in the prerevolutionary decade. Both Government and Opposition viewed him as the apologist for Crown policy and personnel that he was. But Sewall saw himself only as an opponent of slander and irresponsible agitation. Such a self-image is not uncommon among those who defend the status quo. ""Cecelia Kenyon has written of the anti-Federalists that they were 'men of little faith. The epitaph is more fittingly laid upon Loyalists like Jonathan Sewall. Sewall's pessimism about reform, his cynicism about men's motivations, and his total lack of confidence in the masses of men were common traits among the officeholding Loyalists. This was more than a self-serving view of life, though it was indeed that. It was an approach to human society that suppressed growth and crippled innovation. It is personally tragic that Jonathan Sewall was exiled from a New England he loved and believed to his death he had served faithfully and well. Yet there was no room for him in the country Massachusetts and her sister colonies hoped to become."--Publisher
印刷版图书, English, 1974
Columbia University Press, New York, 1974