In one of my college history classes, the professor said only ten percent of the colonists backed the Revolution. Eighty percent had a don't-care attitude and sat back. A minority of colonists did the actual fighting against the Brits. Another reason why we need to keep Muslims from infiltrating our nation, as it only takes ten percent to foment a rebellion while eighty percent sit on their butts doing very little.
I think it’s higher than 10%. Maybe he meant in NY. In the South, it was easily 1/3, of which the overwhelming number were Scots-Irish.