I recall reading in some long historical tome some years ago that indeed the sea coasters of eastern Canada were rather sympathetic to the colonists at the time of the revolution and that the rebelling colonists managed to antagonize them and lose what could have been a significant asset in the revolution by their generally boorish and bellicose behavior. I would have to return to the library for further details. It may have been in a multi volume history of Canada. It certainly down't come up in the standard US history books, b7ut may in some specialized ones. There is thus a grain of history in "Barret's Privateers" which of course was written 200 years after the fact.

rich r