"
Lossing tells us of the imprisonment of one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, in the following language: "Suffering and
woe held terrible sway after Cornwallis and his army swept over the
plains of New Jersey. Like others of the signers of the great
Declaration, Richard Stockton was marked for peculiar vengeance by the
enemy. So suddenly did the flying Americans pass by in the autumn of
1776, and so soon were the Hessian vultures and their British
companions on the trail, that he had barely time to remove his family
to a place of safety before his beautiful mansion was filled with rude
soldiery. The house was pillaged, the horses and stock were driven
away, the furniture was converted into fuel, the choice old wines in
the cellar were drunk, the valuable library, and all the papers of
Mr. Stockton were committed to the flames, and the estate was laid
waste. Mr. Stockton's place of concealment was discovered by a party
of loyalists, who entered the house at night, dragged him from his
bed, and treating him with every indignity that malice could invent,
hurried him to New York, where he was confined in the loathsome
Provost Jail and treated with the utmost cruelty. When, through the
interposition of Congress he was released, his constitution was
hopelessly shattered, and he did not live to see the independence of
his country achieved.
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