Under duress in a British prison, Richard Stockton
of New Jersey had the singular misfortune to become
... THE SIGNER WHO RECANTED.
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1975/4/1975_4_22.shtml
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.
It was probably the harsh treatment suffered while in British confinement that had broken Richard Stockton’s spirit to the point where he would renounce every principle he had espoused for over a decade. We have no way of knowing whether he had also been subjected to psychological pressure, such as daily recitals of the military reverses being suffered by the Continental Army. But it is evident that the physical regimen imposed upon him had broken his body, too; it took him three full years to recover his health.
Stocketon would have been neither the first nor last person in history to do the unthinkable while captured.
Remember Steve Centanni and his photographer ‘converting’ to Islam? Sometimes you do what you have to do. If it spares your life or your family’s life, you can make amends later. If they kill you, you can no longer serve any cause or purpose other than martyrdom.