Idle Talk or Treason?

During the Revolutionary War, a man in Pennsylvania was prosecuted for misprision of treason under a state law punishing anyone who, by publicly and deliberately speaking or writing against the public defence, tried to excite the people to resist the government or persuade them to return to dependence on the British Crown. The prosecution alleged he declared that he had lived six years in London and nine in Ireland, had never lived happier than under the English government, and that "the King of England is our King." There was some attempt to show he was drunk when he said it. The defence argued the words had to be spoken publicly, deliberately and maliciously, to persuade others to resist, and that his remarks merely expressed an opinion.