BIO: (See information about Irish Loyalist artist John RAMAGE below). Most of the United States rejoiced at the glad tidings of victory in the Revolutionary War, but one group of Americans was plunged into despair - the loyalists. Best estimates range between 75,000 and 100,000 dissenting Americans. At least 60,000 and perhaps 80,000 left the US during and after the Revolution. Contrary to myth, loyalists (a name they gave themselves ) were not all wealthy aristocrats. Among the loyalists who fled Boston with the British army in 1776 were 382 farmers, traders and mechanics. Many of those who could afford it retreated to England but were disillusioned by seeing "prostitutes thronging London's streets," and of the climate where they had to "wear winter clothing in August." Most of all, they were desperately homesick and those who had not actively fought against the Revolution were largely able to return unmolested. When it became apparent that the Americans had no! intention of honoring the clause in the peace treaty calling for compensation for loyalist losses, the British Parliament appointed a commission that examined 4,118 claims from loyalists who had had their property confiscated and their houses wrecked or looted by the rebels. Eventually the royal government paid out almost 3.3 million pounds to the claimants. A few loyalists won pensions or government jobs, but the standard British solution to loyalist pleas was a grant of land in Canada. Most, about 35,000, settled in Nova Scotia Along with grants of land, the Crown gave them warm clothing, farm supplies and equipment, and cash grants for the first two years. More than 3,000 ex-slaves who had joined the British also settled in Nova Scotia. After seven years they were so disgusted by the local government's failure to give them decent land, and its insistence on segregating them and in several cases re-enslaving them, that 1,000 blacks persuaded the Crown to transport t! hem back at Africa, where they helped create the British colony of Sierra Leone. No matter where they went, most loyalists remained American to the end of their days. No one summed up the divided state of their souls better than Massachusetts leader of the lost cause, Thomas HUTCHINSON. Not along before his death, he wrote in his diary: "I would rather die in a little country farmhouse in New England than in the best nobleman's seat in Old England." A portrait miniature of George WASHINGTON was sold by Christie's auction house to an anonymous bidder for $1.2 million in January of 2001. Painted in 1789 by John RAMAGE, the fine oval portrait measures 2-1/8 in. high and also includes plaited strands of Washington's hair inside its lovely case. Ramage painted the portrait - the first one completed of Washington after his inauguration as the nation's first president for First Lady Martha Washington. RAMAGE, an Irishman who had fought on the Loyalist side during the American Revolution, was considered New York's most fashionable artist of miniature portraits at the time. George Washington's private nickname for Martha was "Patsy." She had shared many of the hardships of the war with her husband, journeying north each year to preside at General Washington's winter quarters at Valley Forge, Morristown and other sites. A consummate hostess, she entertained Congressmen and French diplomats with unfailing skill. Washington wore a ring on his finger containing her portrait in miniature, although I don't know who the artist was.