The tories gathered in bands, and every man who was impatient of legal restraint, every murderer, horse-thief, and highway robber in the community flocked to join them.

The militia who hunted them down soon ceased to discriminate between tories and other criminals, and the courts rendered decisions to the same effect.
The caption of one indictment that has been preserved reads against the defendant "in toryism." He was condemned to imprisonment during the war, half his goods was confiscated to the use of the State, and the other half was turned over for the support of his family.

In another case the court granted a still more remarkable order, upon the motion of the State attorney, which set forth that fifteen hundred pounds, due to a certain H., should be retained in the hands of the debtor, because "there is sufficient reason to believe that the said H's estate will be confiscated to the use of the State for his misdemeanours." There is something refreshing in the solemnity with which these decisions are recorded, and the evident lack of perception on the part of the judges that their records would, to their grandchildren, have a distinctly humorous side.

To tories, and evil-doers generally, the humor was doubtless very grim; but as a matter of fact, the decisions, though certainly of unusual character, were needful and just.

The friends of order had to do their work with rough weapons, and they used them most efficiently.