The self-appointed committees took in hand the task of disciplining those who did not fly, and the rabble often pushed matters to brutal extremes.

When we remember that Washington himself regarded Tories as the vilest of mankind and unfit to live, we can imagine the spirit of mobs, which had sometimes the further incentive of greed for Loyalist property.

Loyalists had the experience of what we now call boycotting when they could not buy or sell in the shops and were forced to see their own shops plundered.

Mills would not grind their corn.

Their cattle were maimed and poisoned.