Editing American Revolution (section)

===Prisoners===
{{Main|Prisoners of war in the American Revolutionary War}}
{{further|HMS Jersey (1736)|Sugar house prisons in New York City}}

On August 23, 1775, George III declared Americans to be traitors to the Crown if they took up arms against royal authority. There were thousands of British and Hessian soldiers in American hands following their surrender at the Battles of Saratoga. Lord Germain took a hard line, but the British generals on American soil never held treason trials, and instead treated captured American soldiers as prisoners of war.<ref>Alan Valentine, ''Lord George Germain'' (1962) pp.&nbsp;309–310</ref> The dilemma was that tens of thousands of Loyalists were under American control and American retaliation would have been easy. The British built much of their strategy around using these Loyalists.<ref name="Larry G. Bowman 1976">Larry G. Bowman, ''Captive Americans: Prisoners During the American Revolution'' (1976)</ref> The British maltreated the prisoners whom they held, resulting in more deaths to American prisoners of war than from combat operations.<ref name="Larry G. Bowman 1976"/> At the end of the war, both sides released their surviving prisoners.<ref>John C. Miller, ''Triumph of Freedom, 1775–1783'' (1948) p. 166.</ref>