Robert Tripp was a Loyalist from West Greenwich Kent Rhode Island who settled  in Gaspé Quebec Canada in 1784. Robert Tripp left the Gaspé area, petitioning  for land near the Ottawa River in Ontario in 1800. Although many Tripps settled  in Ontario and parts of the United States, Samuel Tripp, son of Robert,returned  to Gaspé to raise his family.The Tripp men and their descendants became an  important part of Gaspé history,as whaling captains and crew members in a  thriving whaling industry in 1800s Gaspésie history.Using genealogy reports,  documents, letters and photographs,this site takes us back to Robert's  beginnings in Rhode Island, highlights the Gaspé branches of the Tripp  descendants, and provides information on branches of our Tripp descendants in  other parts of Canada and the United States.
 The research on this site is an on-going journey with additions and corrections  to be made as new sources and information are discovered. Any additional  information or corrections you may offer are always appreciated. Please sign  the guest book.
 ****************************************************************************************

The Pausing American Loyalist - 1776 

To sign, or not to sign? That is the question. 
 Whether 'twere better for an honest man 
 To sign, and so be safe; or to resolve, 
 Betide what will, against associations, 
 And, by retreating, shun them. To fly - I reck 
 Not where: And, by that flight, t' escape 
 Feathers and tar, and thousand other ills 
 That loyalty is heir to: 'Tis a consummation 
 Devoutly to be wished. To fly -- to want -- 
 To want? Perchance to starve: Ay, there's the rub!

For, in that chance of want, what ills may come 
 To patriot rage, when I have left my all -- 
 Must give me pause: -- There's the respect 
 That makes us trim, and bow to men we hate. 
   
 For, who would bear th' indignities o' th' times, 
 Congress decrees, and wild convention plans, 
 The laws controll'd, and inj'ries unredressed, 
 The insolence of knaves, and thousand wrongs 
 Which patient liege men from vile rebels take, 
 When he, sans doubt, might certain safety find, 
 Only by flying? Who would bend to fools, 
 And truckle thus to mad, mob-chosen upstarts, 
 But that the dread of something after flight 
 (In that blest country, where, yet, no moneyless 
 Poor wight can live) puzzles the will, 
 And makes ten thousands rather sign -- and eat, 
 Than fly -- to starve on loyalty. -- 
   
 Thus, dread of want makes rebels of us all: 
 And thus the native hue of loyalty 
 Is sicklied o'er with a pale cast of trimming; 
 And enterprises of great pith and virtue, 
 But unsupported, turn their streams away, 
 And never come to action.
  
  From the January 30, 1776 issue of the British newspaper, The Middlesex Journal.     The poem is based on Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' speech and depicts  the very difficult position of a loyalist who was pressured by fellow  colonists to sign an oath of fidelity to the Continental Congress. As the poem shows, some Tories became very reluctant 'rebels'.