Various legends linger around the signers of the Declaration
of Independence and the circumstances of the signing.  A commonly
held belief, as one scholar expressed it in AMERICAN HERITAGE
(December, 1962), is that "not one man of the fifty-six [signers]
lost his 'sacred honor.'  Throughout the long ordeal of an often-
floundering war, in a cause that at times seemed hopelessly lost,
there was not among the fifty-six men a single defection - despite
the reservations that some had about independence at the beginning
and despite the repeated sagging of popular support for the war.
        Alas, this is not quite true.
        One signer, following capture by the British and under
pressure of a harsh confinement during what was without question
the darkest hour of the Revolution for the American cause, did then
defect, by taking an oath of obedience to the king and pledging
that he would take no further part in the pending struggle.
        Richard Stockton was the fourth generation of a wealthy and
prominent New Jersey family.  Born in 1730, the son of a county
judge, he was a member of the class of 1748 at the College of New
Jersey (now Princeton University) and after graduation studied law. 
He rose steadily in his profession, not only by routine advancement
- attorney in 1754, counsellor in 1758, serjeant-at-law in 1764 -
but, preeminently, in reputation.  Before long he was widely
considered one of the outstanding lawyers of the Province of New
Jersey.
        When the Stamp Act controversy arose in 1765, Stockton aligned
himself on the side of the protesting colonists.  But this
circumstance did not prevent his appointment in 1768 to the Council
of the Royal Governor, William  Franklin, a barrister-at-law of the
Middle Temple in England and the illegitimate son of Benjamin
Franklin.  In February, 1774, Stockton was commissioned an
associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, meanwhile
retaining his seat on the council, whose meetings he attended as
late as November 24, l775, - more than a half year after the
shooting started.
        It is essential to bear in mind that New Jersey sentiment on
independence was sharply divided for a long time.  Just three days
after the last council meeting that Stockton attended, a committee
appointed by the New Jersey Assembly drafted a petition to the
king, "humbly beseeching him to use his interposition to prevent
the effusion of blood; and to express the great desire this House
hath to a restoration of peace and harmony, with the Parent State,
on constitutional principles" - all this after the battles of
Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill.  But when news of the New
Jersey proposal reached the Continental Congress in Philadelphia,
that body resolved that it would be "very dangerous to the
liberties and welfare of America" if any colony were to petition
the king separately.  A congressional committee was immediately
dispatched to New Jersey to implement this resolution, with the
result that the project for a separate New Jersey petition was
quietly dropped.
        During the early days of 1776, as American public opinion grew 
generally ever stronger in favor of independence, the middle
colonies still hesitated.  By June, however, the Provincial
Congress of New Jersey had deposed William Franklin from the
governor's chair and had directed his arrest.  New delegates to
Congress, among them Richard Stockton, were chosen on June 21 and
were empowered to join other representatives of the other colonies
"in declaring the United Colonies independent of Great Britain,
entering into a Confederacy for Union and common Defence." 
Accordingly they participated in the final affirmative vote for
independence on July 2, 1775, and the vote for the Declaration
itself on July 4.  Toward the end of August the new state
government of New Jersey began to function.  Richard Stockton was
chosen as first chief justice of the new state but declined,
preferring for the moment the more active career of a member of
Congress.
        Late in September, Stockton and George Clymer of Pennsylvania
were appointed as a committee to inspect the Northern Army, a body
composed of the survivors of the troops who had straggled back from
Canada to Ticonderoga after the failure of the attack on Quebec. 
Having inquired into and reported on the wants and miseries of 
these unhappy troops, Stockton left Albany for his home in
Princeton, whence he expected to resume his seat in Congress.  But
Princeton by then was in British hands.  On returning from his
northern expedition Richard Stockton was forced to seek shelter
elsewhere.  He went to the home of a friend in Monmouth County,
John Covenhoven, a member of the state legislature.  There, on
November 30, 1776, both men were captured by a party of local
Tories.  Covenhoven was taken to New York, Stockton to the common
gaol at Perth Amboy, where he was treated as a criminal rather than
as a political prisoner.  Soon afterward he was too transported to
New York and again lodged in jail.
        On December 30, Dr. Benjamin Rush advised Richard Henry Lee
that "I have heard, from good authority, that my much honoured
father-in-law [Stockton], who is now a prisoner with General Howe,
suffers many indignities and hardships from the enemy, from which
not only his rank, but his being a man, ought to exempt him.  I
wish you would propose to Congress to pass a resolution in his
favour, similar to that they have passed in favour of General
[Charles] Lee.  They owe it to their honour, as well as to a member
of their body."
        Congress, then as now sensitive to sentiments of group
loyalty, was quick to act, adopting the following resolution on
January 3, 1777:
        "Whereas Congress hath received information that the
Honourable Richard Stockton, Esq. of New Jersey, and a member of
this Congress, hath been made a prisoner by the enemy, and that he
has been ignominiously thrown into a common goal;
        "Resolved that General Washington be directed to make
immediate enquiry into the truth of this report, and if he finds
reason to believe it well founded, that he send a flag to General
Howe, remonstrating against his departure from that humane
procedure that has marked the conduct of these states to prisoners,
who have fallen into their hands; and to know of General Howe
whether he chuses that this shall be the future rule for treating
all such, on both sides, as the fortune of war may place in the
hands of either party."
        On January 7 John Hancock, the president of the Congress, 
transmitted this resolution to Washington, requesting that he "make
inquiry whether the Report which Congress have heard of Mr.
Stockton's being confined in a Common Jail by the Enemy, has any
Truth in it, or not."
        Stockton's confinement is not mentioned further in the
journals of the Continental Congress.  Nor is it referred to in any
surviving letter written by Washington.  Yet he was back home in
Princeton by mid-March, 1777, under circumstances clearly
indicating his release was not the result of intercession at the
top, nor of a trade for other prisoners of equivalent rank in
American hands.  Indeed, it became all too plain after his return
that Richard Stockton had walked out of prison a free man in
consequence of unilateral action on his part; he made submission to
that very king to whom he had forsworn allegiance a mere six months
earlier.

[This article first appeared in American Heritage magazine in 1975. It is reprinted in The Stockton Chronicle in two parts, with permission. Coming in the July 1996 Chronicle: the evidence of Richard Stockton's recantation!]