In earlier years, Indian raids on the farmers of Virginia had stirred him to "deadly sorrow," and later, during his retreat from New York, he was moved by the cries of the weak and infirm.

Yet the same man felt no touch of pity for the Loyalists of the Revolution.

To him they were detestable parricides, vile traitors, with no right to live.

When we find this note in Washington, in America, we hardly wonder that the high Tory, Samuel Johnson, in England, should write that the proposed taxation was no tyranny, that it had not been imposed earlier because "we do not put a calf into the plough; we wait till he is an ox," and that the Americans were "a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything which we allow them short of hanging." Tyranny and treason are both ugly things.

Washington believed that he was fighting the one, Johnson that he was fighting the other, and neither side would admit the charge against itself.
Such are the passions aroused by civil strife.