https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/05/patriots-against-loyalists-on-eastern-long-island-1775-1776/
By September 1776, Loyalists began to express their devotion to the Crown in greater numbers, and hoped that the coming of the British to New York would ease civil war tensions and erase the harsh boundaries drawn among Loyalists and Patriots during the Association conflicts of 1775 and 1776.