with halters round their necks. At the gallows, wrote a
spectator, Roberts's behaviour 'did honour to human
nature.'

He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene

Addressing the spectators, he told them that his conscience
acquitted him of guilt; that he suffered for doing his
duty to his sovereign; and that his blood would one day
be required at their hands. Then he turned to his children
and charged them to remember the principles for which he
died, and to adhere to them while they had breath.

But if these judicial murders were few and far between,
in other respects the revolutionists showed the Tories
little mercy. Both those who remained in the country and
those who fled from it were subjected to an attack on
their personal fortunes which gradually impoverished
them. This was carried on at first by a nibbling system
of fines and special taxation. Loyalists were fined for
evading military service, for the hire of substitutes,
for any manifestation of loyalty. They were subjected to
double and treble taxes; and in New York and South Carolina
they had to make good all robberies committed in their
counties. Then the revolutionary leaders turned to the
expedient of confiscation. From the very first some of
the patriots, without doubt, had an eye on Loyalist
property; and when the coffers of the Continental Congress
had been emptied, the idea gained ground that the Revolution