Author’s Note

When I first encountered William Rotch, I thought he was one of the unluckiest men of the eighteenth century.Accused of disloyalty four times by three governments in just two decades (1775-95), he endured-some would say earned-suspicion and scorn as a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers).Those in power and those around him regarded his pacifist principles as political subversion, arguing he betrayed his country when he withheld support for war efforts in the United States, France, and Great Britain.Yet as you read the first half of the book, look for clues that there is more to William's story than he (and I) initially let on.I first encountered his tale while researching a book about the persecution of Quakers across the Atlantic World; his saga of hardship and survival fit a pattern I had identified in other Friends' experiences during this period.But it turns out there was much, much more to his story that I had yet to uncover.I spent years unearthing new sources and revisiting old ones, piecing together an alternate timeline for the events in William's life (we'll get to that!).I thought telling this story with comics would be a fun challenge and a way to increase the tale's accessibility.But as I learned more about how to read and make comics, I began to think about the process of "making" history in entirely new ways.My conversations with the artist about character, dialogue, storyline, and pacing taught me how the comics medium spoke to the historical discipline in ways both subtle and profound.In the beginning, I resisted these intersections.I winced when prodded about character motivation, objected to reordering or collapsing events to accommodate plot, and was aghast at suggestions of editing quotations.I shrugged off questions about design and deferred decisions about panel composition and placement to the artist.But a friend with a foot in both worlds helped me see that my resistance stemmed in large part from a discomfort with acknowledging I already did all these things when writing history.Historians can never find and fit together every piece of the puzzle of the past.There will always be gaps in the historical record: blurry spots we fill out and blank spaces we fill in when selecting, interpreting, and deploying