CHARACTER OF THE REFUGEES.
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GOV. LIVTNGSTON'S DESCRIPTION AND GALLOWAY'S TESTIMONY.
It must not be supposed that evils inflicted by the refugees upon our ancestors were such evils as are usually incident to war. Our ancestors suffered these in addition. It is not probable that all who were called Jersey Refugees were native Jerseymen; too many were, it is true, but the thrift and industry of the inhabitants of old Monmouth, which county at one time was the richest in the State, the advantage of deep swamps and forests for hiding, the proximity of Raritan Bay, and the seaboard rendering it convenient to send plunder to New York, all formed attractions to villains from other places - villains whose chief object was plunder, often robbing Tories as well as Whigs, who scrupled at no crime to obtain booty, at no outrage to gratify revenge. Their character is clearly set forth in the following extracts, one from a Whig, the other from a Tory:

Said Gov. Livingston, in his message to our Legislature in 1777:

"The Royalists have plundered friends as well as foes; effects capable of division they have divided; such as were not, they have destroyed. They have warred on decrepid old age and upon defenceless youth; they have committed hostilities against the professors of literature and against ministers of religion; against public records and private monuments, books of improvements and papers of curiosity, and against the arts and sciences. They have butchered the wounded when asking for quarter, mangled the dead while weltering in their blood, refused to the dead their right of sepulture, suffered prisoners to perish for want of sustenance, violated the chastity of women, disfigured private dwellings of taste and elegance, and in the rage of impiety and barbarism profaned edifices dedicated to Almighty God."

The following is the testimony of Gallaway, a Pennsylvania Tory of wealth and position, who at first was a Whig and afterwards turned Tory, and had property confiscated to the amount of £40,000 sterling. Speaking of Refugee outrages he says:

"Respecting indiscriminate plunder, it is known to thousands."

"In respect to the rapes, a solemn inquiry was made, and affidavits taken by which it appears that no less than twenty-three were committed in one neighborhood in New Jersey, some of them on married women in presence of their husbands, and others on daughters, while the unhappy parents with unavailing tears and cries could only deplore their savage brutality."

After reading such authoritative statements of the character of these wretches, who will wonder that our ancestors were aroused, determined to drive them from the soil they polluted.

Our ancestors in old Monmouth did all that was possible for brave men to do to bring these villains to justice. Besides those hanged and killed at other places, thirteen were hanged on one gallows near Freehold Court House.

The particulars of the capture, etc., of several of these villains in Monmouth is extant, but not necessary to introduce here, as they are given in some modern works.

At the close of the war the Refugees generally went to Nova Scotia, but some went to the Bahamas by invitation of General Browne. In September and October, 1782, many left New York for Halifax and the Bahamas by his invitation.

BACON - SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL OUTRAGES BY HIM.
John Bacon, the Refugee leader, bad as he was, yet probably was the best one of them of whom we have any accounts. In the previous accounts it will be seen he worked at Manahawkin before the war; was engaged in affairs at Cedar Creek, Manahawkin, Forked River; killed Studson at Toms River or Cranbury Inlet, killed Steelman, Soper and others, on the beach, etc. He plundered also the house of Reuben Soper's father, above Barnegat, and when shot, had on, it is said, a shirt stolen from Soper. The day before he was killed at West Creek, it is stated, he was on the beach around a wreck and being very officious in ordering men about, they found out who he was and planned to trap him at night. A woman, overhearing it, told Bacon and he escaped to the mainland just in time to be at Rose's house when Crookes' party came up. One tradition differing from Governor Fort's statement, says he begged for quarters and held up the table before him, but was shot through the table. Bacon's wife, it is said, lived at Pemberton where he left two sons. (See elsewhere.)