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The Brits have been brutal despots for centuries.

Below is how they handled what they called Treason:

High Treason under King George III, during our Revolution, 1776:

Since High Treason was, and arguably remains, the most serious capital crime, testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act was required to convict, and the punishment in the Eighteenth century was severe. Blackstone states that “the punishment of high treason in general is very solemn and terrible”:

1. That the offender be drawn to the gallows, and not be carried or walk: though usually (by connivance length ripened by humanity into law) a sledge or hurdle is allowed, to preserve the offender from the extreme torment of being dragged on the ground or pavement

2. That he be hanged by the neck and then cut down alive

3. That his entrails be taken out and burned, while he is yet alive

4. That his head be cut off

5. That his body be divided in four parts

6. That his head and quarters be at the king’s disposal [6].

The punishment did not end with the personal suffering of the offender; the punishment extended to his or her family. The law states that a person who is found guilty of treason must also undergo “forfeiture” and “corruption of blood.” In forfeiture, the person is forced to give all their lands and property to the state. Corruption of blood prevents the person’s immediate family and hereditary heirs from owning property or conducting business— in effect ruining the offender’s family forever.

Today, the most famous offenders of the eighteenth-century English treason laws are the American revolutionaries. The Declaration of Independence violates the 3rd law of treason in this statement: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other out Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” [8]. When John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other founding fathers signed this statement, they did not sign some empty philosophical statement, they signed their death warrant.

This action displayed their dedication to the cause of American independence and the ultimate disloyalty to King George the Third (below). Until the Declaration of Independence, Washington, Jefferson, Adams and the others only disagreed with Parliament, not the Crown; in fact, after a day of fighting the British soldiers, Washington and his officers would toast the King before dinner. This document is important because it marks the revolutionaries’ acknowledgment that the corruption of the English government was not contained within the Parliament, but extended all the way up to the King; it marks the point of no return: either the revolutionaries were going to gain their independence from England and create a new country, or they were going to lose the war to the best army in the world, forfeit everything they owned, ruin their families, and be drawn and quartered.