This essay presents a first-person fictional narrative from the perspective of a young colonial apprentice grappling with divided loyalties during the American Revolutionary War. The narrator observes growing tensions between Crown loyalists and colonial rebels, weighing his lifelong allegiance to King George against his personal ties to respected community members who have taken up arms against British soldiers. Drawing on historical events such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Stamp Acts, the narrator gradually reconsiders his loyalty to the British government as he witnesses soldiers preparing to fire on his neighbors and friends.
I am so tired of the feuding between the rebel Colonists and the King's soldiers! Must we all be forced to choose a side? There stands the soldier of my King — head of my country and the one to whom I have owed allegiance since the day of my birth. But at the other side stand the people I have known since that birth. There stands the butcher Mr. Cooper, a good man with a good wife. I am apprenticed with his son; he is teaching me a good trade, and I will have a happy life thanks to his guidance. And yet this man, whom I know to be good and honest, is ready to train his gun on the King's soldiers. How can this be?
The Loyalist press says that the colonists who have formed militias are men of no account — men from the very lowest classes and little more than hooligans (Stanley, PAGE). I used to believe that. But these militiamen include men like Mr. Cooper. There is old Calvin Pike, too. He must be fifty. He is a farmer. He owns land and works hard. These people are not riff-raff. We would have no town without them, and they are reasonable people.
I understand why colonists are so angry. My family was in Boston visiting my mother's family in March of 1770 when British soldiers fired on townspeople. Then there was that incident in 1765 when the governor's coach was burned until it was nothing but a pile of ashes and cinders (Kreamer, PAGE). No wonder the British think the colonists are nothing but a bunch of rabble!
The incident in 1770 was absolutely awful, but it was pretty clear that some of the colonists, at least, were just looking for a reason to go after the British soldiers (Author not given, PAGE). One thing I am certain of is that what we really have here are two armies facing each other. They have been involved in skirmishes for years, and it seems as if all of them want a fight — if the Boston Massacre is any example. I have always been loyal to the King, but is this how a king treats his subjects — by drawing weapons on them? The colonists did not start this fight; they are here in response to the threat.
"Secret patriots complicate the narrator's loyalties"
"Taxation without representation fuels colonial anger"
"Narrator reconsiders allegiance to the Crown"
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