In the fall of 1778 John Roberts, a prosperous Quaker miller who owned valuable property located about ten miles from Philadelphia, stood trial before a jury that found him guilty of having committed treason. He was charged with having betrayed the patriot cause and the nascent government of Pennsylvania by joining the British when they had earlier occupied Philadelphia. If not entirely innocent, did Roberts nevertheless deserve a trip to the gallows a month after the jury returned its verdict? Relying on two long-neglected contemporary records of this treason trial, David Maxey explores in depth the issue of Roberts’s guilt while capturing the atmosphere of confusion, conflicting loyalties, political bickering, and religious tension that prevailed in and around Philadelphia during that period. This is a study, replete in characters and contradictions, of the American Revolution as a civil war that divided neighbors and neighborhoods and of pardon that came haltingly when it came at all. 
 
Maxey has produced a masterful investigation of the treason trial and hanging of Quaker John Roberts after the British evacuation of Philadelphia in 1778. A key characteristic of Maxey’s presentation is its rock-solid research, based on piecing together small bits of extant evidence that undergird this compelling reconstruction of a tragic story that took place during the turbulent wartime years of the American Revolution.
        James Kirby Martin
        Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor of History
        University of Houston