When we talk about the Declaration of Independence, we tend to remember the poetry. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Big ideas, clean ideals, a nation imagining itself into being.

But that is only half the document.

The Declaration is also an indictment, and one of its most furious charges accuses King George the Third of doing something unforgivable by eighteenth century standards. Transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to make war on his own people.

That line is not rhetorical flourish. It is a line in the sand.

In this episode, we are going to unpack why that accusation mattered so much, how the soldier trade actually worked, and why the arrival of German troops transformed a political dispute into an irreversible break. We will look at fear, propaganda, theology, and cold hard contracts that priced human lives by the head.

This is the moment when reconciliation died, and independence became inevitable.