With Nothing But Our Courage

by Karleen Bradford

The Loyalist Diary of Mary MacDonald, Johnstown, Quebec, 1783

October 7th, 1783 - They came for Father this morning. A loud, rowdy bunch of so-called Patriots with cockades in their hats, all puffed up with righteousness and their own importance. We knew most of them. They were our neighbours. People we used to call friends. They pulled Father out of the house and dragged him down the path. They just dragged him! And then...
This is the part I cannot write. But I must.

They lifted my dear father up and sat him on a mule — backwards! They tied his hands to the pommel and whipped the mule forward. They paraded Father through town that way, shouting vile oaths that I cannot repeat even to this journal. My father! He will die of the shame of this.