In Tryon county

alone, 12,000 farms went out of cultivation; fully two-thirds of the

population either died or fled, While of the one-third who remained

300 were widows and 2,000 orphans. And yet, as I have said, the

losses of the Iroquois were greater still. But it is with the causes which led to this savage work that I am

here to deal. For quite 100 years, Joseph Brant and the Tories of

the Mohawk Valley, with Col. Guy and Sir John Johnson, and John

and Walter Butler, at their head, were generally accepted as the

original and inspiring forces in all the barbarities committed. The

greater offenders, however, were men of much higher station and

more ample powers -- men who had never seen the val'leys of the

Susquehanna and the Mohawk, but who lived in London, and as

members of the King's Cabinet were in direct charge of the war in

America. One of them was the Earl of Dartmouth, the other Lord

George Germaine ; but it is to Germaine that we must ascribe the

chief odium. The administration of the Province of New York, when the

Revolution began, was completely in the hands of Loyalists. New

York was still a Crown colony, officials holding their appointments

directly from London. Outside the official class, however, there

were patriots in plenty ; none of the colonies possessed more ; but

as New York City was completely dominated by Tory influences, so

was the M'ohawk Valley dominated by the Johnsons and their army

of followers, in whom loyalty to England was a deep-seated sentiment and a fixed principle of conduct. Sir William Johnson had

died just as the Revolution was about to begin. His successors

became not only as great Loyalists as ever he had been, but, being

men of smaller minds and fewer talents.