This act has been cited a hundred times as evidence against the claims to the exercise of uniform humanity on the part of the patriots, and magnified into a foul murder, justified by no plea of public expediency. The facts prove otherwise; for if it was ever expedient to take the life of a dangerous citizen, then Roberts and Carlisle suffered justly. While they abstained from open hostility to the Revolutionary government, and refused to bear arms for the king, they gave secret aid, far more potent to the enemies of liberty. They were employed by Joseph Galloway and his loyal friends as secret agents in detecting foes to the government. While Howe had possession of Philadelphia, Carlisle granted permissions to pass the lines, watched at the entrance of the city to point out obnoxious persons coming from the country, and many were arrested and cast into prison on his bare suggestion.. Under the meek garb and demeanor of the Quaker was a Torquemada, exercising the functions of an inquisitor general. When Howe ordered a detachment, under Lieutenant-colonel Abercrombie, to go out upon the Frankford road, and fall upon a party of American militia, who, he was informed, were lying in the woods, Egberts and Carlisle, who would not _bear arms_ for the wealth of the Indies, acted as guides in conducting Abercrombie to the massacre of their countrymen. According to the rules of war and of state policy, their execution was expedient and salutary in effect. It was a subject for bitter vituperation on the part of the Tories, and even those who would fain have saved them from death were charged with dishonorable motives. "Governor Livingston went to Philadelphia," wrote John Potts to Joseph Galloway, "and urged his endeavors to prevail on the banditti in power there to save Roberts and Carlisle, not from any principle of honor or conscience--you know him too well--but from motives, as he thought, of policy." I think it may be safely asserted that where one Tory lost his life at the hands of the Whigs during the Revolution, fifty Whigs were slain in cold blood by the Tories. The reason is obvious--a heart warmed with love of country is benevolent and humane; its active opposers may fairly be presumed to be mercenary, and consequently cruel. The supper-bell has rung; let us close the chronicle for to-night, and in the morning go out in search of localities made memorable by events connected with our war for independence.