American Colonies - 5

02/06/2021 American colonies -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
American colonies
The bid for independence (1763–83)
Early in 1763 King George III and his ministers proclaimed the triumphant close of the Seven
Years’ War and took the first long steps toward another conflict that would shake the British
Empire to its foundations. Fifteen days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the secretary at
war announced in the House of Commons a ministerial plan to raise the British garrison forces
in North America from a peacetime establishment of 3,100 men to 7,500, declaring that these
troops should “be supported the first year by England, afterwards by the Colonies.” This
simple proposal raised issues that gradually drove the American colonists toward
independence.
Earlier disagreements
Relations between Britain and the colonies had not been

altogether harmonious before 1763; in fact, there had
been so many contests that one may think of them as
zoom_in chronic. The colonists had steadily striven to achieve

George III
control of their local affairs and had actually reached that
King George III.
© Photos.com/Thinkstock goal in Connecticut and Rhode Island before the end of
the 17th century. In the other colonies they had
encountered resistance by proprietary and royal governors, councillors, judges, and other
officials. They had striven to make the elected lower house of the assembly the dominant force
in every colony. In these struggles the lower house had gradually seized the initiative with
regard to money bills and then with regard to legislative questions in general. It had also
invaded the area of executive authority. In all the colonies it was claimed that for domestic
affairs the lower house was the counterpart of the British House of Commons, and such was
the case in fact, although in British theory the colonial legislatures were merely municipal
bodies. To be sure, parliamentary efforts to confine American commerce and manufacturing
had not yet created grave grievances, Parliament had not tried to tax the mainland colonists for
https://www.britannica.com/print/article/669036 1/30
revenue, and the Americans had not questioned the control of foreign affairs by crown and
Parliament.
It may be argued that Britain entered upon its new colonial policy as early as 1759. In that year
the tide of war had shifted strongly in favour of Britain (and its colonies), and British officials
therefore acted more vigorously in colonial questions. Evidence of a marked change is to be
found in the disallowance by the Privy Council of the Virginia Two-Penny Tobacco Act in
August 1759, increasing insistence in London that instructions to royal governors had the force
of law; orders from London requiring that new laws changing old ones in Virginia,
Massachusetts, and South Carolina should not go into effect until approved by the Privy
Council; and demands from the imperial capital that judges in New York and New Jersey hold
office during the king’s pleasure rather than during good behaviour.
The Anglican church supplied other grievances between 1759 and 1763. Its instrument, the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, had established “missions” in New
England before the Seven Years’ War but had then relaxed its efforts. In 1761 the Society,
following the leadership of Thomas Seeker, archbishop of Canterbury, opened a new mission
church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the heart of Congregationalism. Not content to
proselytize in Cambridge, the archbishop also sought to prevent the Congregationalists from
sending missionaries to the Native Americans. A Massachusetts Act of 1762 to assist them
was, through the influence of the archbishop, disallowed by the Privy Council in the following
year. The activities of the Anglicans, supported by British officials, irked the
Congregationalists, who had long feared that the Church of England would send a bishop to
America.
New colonial policy
If British colonial policy did not definitely turn a corner before the end of the Seven Years’
War, it did soon thereafter. The decision of George III and the ministry headed by John Stuart,
3rd earl of Bute to seek the enlargement of the garrison forces in North America was
unquestionably momentous. As the Seven Years’ War drew to its end, the British government
moved to reduce the regular army because it was expensive and because so large a force would
not be necessary in peacetime. Parliament accepted a recommendation from the ministry that
75 regiments be kept in service, including 17 to be stationed in North America. Such an
establishment, 50 percent larger than in 1754, might not have been approved by Parliament
had it not been announced that the colonists, including those who resided in the West Indies,
would be required to pay their share of its cost.
It is doubtful that so many troops were needed in

America for defense; a much smaller force had been
thought sufficient before 1754, when French Canada had
posed a serious threat. Of course, garrison troops were
needed in the St. Lawrence Valley to prevent a French
zoom_in
Bute, John Stuart, 3rd earl of Canadian revolt, and it was logical to place others in East
John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute, detail of and West Florida to check possible Spanish aggression.
an oil painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds; in the National Portrait Other detachments to be maintained in interior forts were
Gallery, London.
Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery,
specially assigned to the task of warding off Indian
London attacks. It is clear enough that only a portion of the
British army in America was to be directly devoted to the
protection of the 13 colonies and that the colonists were likely to bear a disproportionate part
of the cost of the new establishment. What was worse, the colonies were asked neither what
kind of defense they desired nor whether they were willing to help pay for it. Trouble would
certainly come when the British government sought to compel the colonists to pay, especially
since it had been more or less understood in the past, at least by the colonists, that they had
accepted parliamentary regulation of their manufacturing and commerce only in exchange for
protection.
Although the attempt to extract money from the colonists to pay for the new army in America
was not scheduled to take place until 1764, the Bute ministry was disposed to act vigorously in
colonial matters in the meantime and there was no slackening of energy when George
Grenville became first lord of the treasury as well as chancellor of the exchequer in April 1763
in a ministry formed by John Russell, 4th duke of Bedford. During slightly more than two
years in office, Grenville carried through a remarkable series of measures intended to bolster
imperial defenses, regulate colonial trade, and obtain an American revenue.
Proclamation line
One of the Grenville measures was the royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, that established
the colonies of Quebec, East Florida, and West Florida, plus a vast Indian reservation in the
North American hinterland. By terms of the Proclamation of 1763, settlement was forbidden in
the vast area between the crest of the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.
Moreover, occupation of wide stretches of land east of the mountains was also limited, since
the Native Americans were recognized as communal owners of the territories they occupied
and purchases of land from them were declared illegal except at a public meeting presided
over by an official chosen by the British government. The chief purpose of the Proclamation of
1763 was to prevent, at least temporarily, colonial expansion westward, for the principal cause
of conflict with the Indians was the seizure of their lands.
The uprising led by Pontiac (1763–64) stimulated action

zoom_in in London. Whatever the justification for the restrictions,
Proclamation of 1763
A map of the North American British they were a new exercise of royal power and limited the
colonies after the Proclamation of
1763, which intended to limit the
authority of both governors and colonial assemblies. The
encroachment of settlers farther west. order forbidding purchase and exploitation of Indian
Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map
Division/New York Public Library (Image territories was disliked by both the farmers who wished
no. 435005)
to till the soil and the speculators who sought to buy land
cheaply. Heated protests came from the colonies,
especially from Virginia; pioneers freely violated the proclamation, and speculators refused to
let the crown destroy their dreams of easy wealth. Though never fully enforced, the measure
won friends for Britain among the Indians, but it helped to turn many farmers and not a few
speculators—men of means and influence—against the mother country.
Trade with Native Americans
Had it not been for expense, the Bedford-Grenville ministry would also have undertaken to
regulate the trade between the colonists and the Native Americans. This traffic, in which the
Indians exchanged furs and deerskins for guns, knives, mirrors, clothing, and rouge, was also a
source of Indian unrest, chiefly because the white traders commonly cheated their Native
American clients. Colonial efforts to compel the white traders to deal honestly could not be
effective because the trading was carried on in the distant villages and hunting grounds of the
Native Americans. In July 1764 the Board of Trade in London completed a “Plan for the
Future Management of Indian Affairs” that would have imposed severe restrictions on the
traders. Because the “Plan” required much money to execute, it was never brought before
Parliament, and the trade with the Indians continued without effective restraint.
Regulation of maritime trade
It was possible, however, to exercise tighter control over a far more important species of the
trade of the colonies—their maritime traffic—without an increase in expense. After April 1763
a British naval squadron was stationed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and its commander was
ordered to do all within his power to enforce the Navigation Acts, and similar instructions
were sent to the colonial governors. Toward the same end, the American customs service was
renovated. That service had for many years been undermanned, lax, and corrupt. It had been
collecting no more than £2,000 per annum in duties, and its costs were as high as £8,000. Now
the customs men were told to do their job. In consequence, the Navigation Acts of the 17th
century, together with the Molasses Act of 1733, were being rigidly enforced on the shores of
New England before the end of 1763. The Molasses Act, in order to compel the mainland
colonists to buy from the British West Indian islands, had levied a duty of sixpence per gallon
upon molasses imported from the foreign islands of the Caribbean. The duty was actually
prohibitive, and the collection of it would have put a stop to trade between the northern
colonies and those subtropical isles, but it had not been collected. The customs officers had
taken it upon themselves to reduce the rate, requiring importers to pay only a halfpenny or a
penny per gallon. Before the end of 1763, however, aware that it was no longer prudent for
them to amend an act of Parliament, they began to enforce the Molasses Act precisely as the
lawmakers in London intended. The result was further and serious cramping of the maritime
commerce of the colonies.
Grenville taxes of 1764

In the spring of 1764 Grenville pushed through Parliament still further devices to restrict the
American economy, and also the first tax upon the mainland colonies to raise money to pay
part of the cost of the troops to be stationed in America. In the revenue act of that year, many
changes were made in the British commercial system, two of which were pivotal. Protests had
been received from America against the enforcement of the Molasses Act, together with a plea
that the duty be set at one penny per gallon. Although warnings were issued that the traffic
could bear no more than that, the government refused to listen.
The Bedford-Grenville ministry wished to either secure

zoom_in revenue from the tax or to protect the British West Indian
George Grenville
George Grenville, detail of an planters against foreign competition or to do both at the
engraving by James Watson after a
painting by William Hoare.
same time. Accordingly, the new law, the Sugar Act
Courtesy of the trustees of the British (1764), placed a threepenny duty upon foreign molasses,
Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman &
Co. Ltd. and its preamble bluntly declared that its purpose was to
raise money for military expenses. The law also provided
for the creation of an admiralty court to deal with those who violated the trade rules or failed to
pay duties. This court would sit at Halifax, an inconvenient spot for the merchants of the 13
colonies. Hitherto, the colonists had been able to appeal to juries in colonial tribunals, but
juries would not be used in the new admiralty court. That same spring Parliament also passed a
new currency act that forbade the colonial assemblies from making their paper currencies legal
tender. Suffering from a shortage of money, partly because of an unfavourable balance of trade
with Britain, the colonies had partly met their need for money by printing it. They had also
fallen into the practice of making it legal tender, even though it commonly depreciated in
value, thus injuring the interests of creditors, both British and American, and causing
economic disturbance. The British government had outlawed such legal tender legislation for
New England in 1751; as it now seemed likely that Virginia and North Carolina would soon
resort to such legislation, it was forbidden in all the colonies.
The Stamp Act
The most famous and most important of all the Grenville measures was the Stamp Act, passed
in the spring of 1765. The new tax on molasses would hardly bring in more than £30,000
toward the costs of the army, and the government believed that the colonists ought to
contribute about £200,000 each year. Grenville conceived that stamp duties (on legal
documents, newspapers, licences, etc.) similar to those collected in Britain should be imposed
upon the colonies; such duties might extract from colonial pockets £75,000 or £100,000.
Grenville announced in the spring of 1764 that a stamp bill would be introduced in the
following year. He claimed that he was willing to consider a substitute that would serve the
same purpose, but he found unacceptable a suggestion made by agents of several American
colonies in London that the king ask the colonial assemblies to vote appropriate sums. One of
them, Benjamin Franklin, vainly proposed the establishment of an American bank that would
not only bring in handsome profits to the British government but also supply a stable currency
in the colonies. Actually, Grenville was determined to have the stamp duties. When protests
came in from America declaring them to be both excessively burdensome and
unconstitutional, he became more determined, and the measure was introduced and quickly
passed.
The Quartering Act

zoom_in
Stamp Act warning Together with the Stamp Act, the Bedford-Grenville
“An Emblem of the Effects of the
STAMP,” a warning against the Stamp
ministry also pushed through important amendments to
Act published in the Pennsylvania the annual Mutiny Act. One of these specifically
Journal, October 1765; in the New
York Public Library. extended the act to America, for it had been claimed by
Rare Books and Manuscripts Division,
some soldiers there, encouraged by some civilians, that
The New York Public Library, Astor,
Lenox and Tilden Foundations British officers had no legal authority beyond the
Atlantic. Colonials had excused and encouraged
desertion. Another addition to the act required the colonial authorities to supply foodstuffs,
drink, fuel, quarters, and also transportation at fixed rates to British soldiers (“Redcoats”)
stationed in towns and villages. At the time, there were few troops in the American
settlements, and not much money would immediately have been taken from the colonists, but
they considered this so-called Quartering Act (1765), like the stamp duties, to be
unconstitutional.
Conflicting views of the new policy

The many measures regarding the colonies undertaken by the Bute and Bedford-Grenville
ministries, together with those of the period 1759–63, collectively meant that Britain had
embarked upon a new colonial policy. The measures were largely new in fact if not in thought,
and the whole of them was impressive. A great turning point had been reached. The men
responsible for the great change felt that Britain was merely asserting its rightful authority, and
they did not expect formidable opposition in America. Indeed, Americans in London,
including Franklin, assumed that although the innovations would be resented beyond the
ocean, there would be no strenuous resistance.
Some historians have argued that the new British policy

zoom_in can be defended on both constitutional and economic
colonists reading the Stamp Act
Colonists reading the Stamp Act, grounds. Considering precedent in London, on the Isle of
illustration from Colonial Days: Being
Stories and Ballads for Young Patriots,
Man, on Jersey, in Ireland, and in common law, a strong
by Richard Markham, 1765. constitutional case for taxation without geographical
Colonial Days: Being Stories and Ballads
for Young Patriots, by Richard Markham, representation can be made. The economic argument is
1765
weaker. It runs to the effect that the colonies had small
public debts and light taxes, while both the public debt
and taxes were heavy in Britain, and that the Americans, being protected by the British army
and navy, were obligated to help pay their share of the cost. On the whole, the public financial
burdens of the Americans were doubtless lighter than those of the British. But this
circumstance is not conclusive. The channeling by Parliament of American trade gave Britain
a handsome income to the detriment of some colonial interests, especially those of the tobacco
planters of the Chesapeake Bay region. Moreover, the wars from which the British debt and
high taxes in large part resulted had not all been begun by the colonists; nor had they been
exclusively fought and paid for by the British. In addition, a debate on things economic, to be
complete, would necessarily include a comparison of incomes. It is doubtful that those of the
Americans were, on a per capita basis, larger than those of the British. The case for the
colonists might also include the contention that the elimination of sinecures and unearned
pensions in Britain would have saved more money than the government would have secured
by taxing the colonists.
The Americans saw in the British innovations a pattern of tyranny and found part of them to be
unconstitutional. Though the adjective “tyrannical” may not apply perfectly to the new
colonial policy, it is not utterly unsuitable. Forbidden to exploit the lands of the West, ordered
to pay for the protection of an enlarged army for which they had not asked, told that their
maritime trade would be closely regulated, injured deeply by interference with their West
Indian trade, at least mildly menaced by the Anglican church, suffering a heavy loss in
medium of exchange, faced by two very substantial taxes for revenue imposed by a Parliament
across the ocean in which they were not represented—all these in a time of postwar economic
distress—the colonists had real and great grievances. Moreover, they had been told that they
could expect additional taxes. If they feebly submitted, they might well expect more burdens to
be placed upon them.
The Stamp Act crisis
In 1765 the colonists rebelled in accordance with one of the best British traditions. Through
their provincial assemblies, through the Stamp Act Congress that met in New York in October,
and by other means, they voiced their hearty dislike of admiralty courts with British judges and
without American juries (though they later found nothing wrong in American admiralty courts
without juries), of the new tax on molasses, of the quartering of troops, and so on. Above all,
they condemned the Stamp Act as both onerous and unconstitutional. It was the right of British
subjects, they said, to be taxed for revenue only by themselves or by representatives who
would also pay the tax. This familiar doctrine, as indicated above, was soundly based upon
English law and custom, despite weighty argument to the contrary. By persuasion, mob
violence, and threats of violence, they forced the men who had been appointed as stamp
distributors to resign or to refuse to serve; stamps sent across the ocean were either destroyed
or sequestered. A few were sold in Georgia. Otherwise, the people of the colonies openly
defied Britain and insisted that the tax be withdrawn. To emphasize their demand, many of
them ceased to buy British goods, and others neglected to pay their British creditors.
Had Grenville been in power when news reached London

zoom_in that the colonists had refused to obey the Stamp Act, it is
Sons of Liberty
likely that Britain and America would quickly have come
The Sons of Liberty burning a copy of to blows. He rejected utterly the American argument
the Stamp Act in 1765.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. against taxation without representation, and he was
(reproduction no. LC-USZC4-1583)
convinced that the colonists must not be permitted to
flout parliamentary authority. As it happened, the decision was not in his hands, for he had
been forced out of office in July 1765. A new ministry headed by Charles Watson-Wentworth,
2nd marquess of Rockingham, and composed chiefly of “Old Whigs” was disposed to
conciliate rather than to coerce the colonists. The Rockingham faction did not question
Parliament’s right to impose the stamp duties and did not wish to yield to the demand for
repeal, but they found it easier to do so because the ugly situation they faced had been created
by their political rivals. They were also encouraged to move toward conciliation by William
Pitt. He not only called for withdrawal of the duties but emphatically declared his agreement
with the American position that they were unconstitutional. While Pitt had but few followers
in Parliament, he had vast prestige with the public. Moreover, British merchants and
manufacturers who suffered from the American boycott, the effects of which were keenly felt
in a time of postwar economic slack, indicated that they desired repeal. Rockingham and the
“Old Whigs” chose to call for repeal of the Stamp Act.
Repeal of the Stamp Act

zoom_in
Charles Watson Wentworth, 2nd In acting to remove the principal American grievance,
marquess of Rockingham
Charles Watson Wentworth, 2nd
the Rockinghamites made no constitutional concessions
marquess of Rockingham. to the colonists. They said the Americans ought to have
Mary Evans Picture Library
respected parliamentary law, and they wished the power
of Parliament to be solemnly asserted in a formal resolution, as did the many foes of repeal of
the Stamp Act. The result was the Declaratory Act of March 1766, passed by overwhelming
majorities despite the opposition of Pitt; in effect it proclaimed the authority of Parliament in
America to be the same as it was in Britain. The ministry also coupled with repeal a demand
that the colonial assemblies compensate the supporters of the Stamp Act in the colonies who
had suffered property losses as the result of mob action. Still further, in the Revenue Act of
1766, the ministry secured reduction of the duty on molasses from threepence to one penny per
gallon, extending it, however, to cover British as well as foreign molasses. While this step was
financially pleasing to the Americans, it should be observed that the revised duty, collected
upon both British and foreign molasses, looked very much like a tax for revenue. The
Rockingham people thus agreed to set aside the stamp duties and to permit the Americans to
trade with the foreign islands in the West Indies but to make no other substantial concessions
in fact or theory.
Even so, repeal of the stamp tax was bitterly opposed in London. To mollify the enemies of
repeal, the ministry defined the American constitutional position regarding taxation as
narrowly as possible. At least some of the American protests against the Bute-Bedford-
Grenville policy, notably one from the lower house of the New York assembly, had condemned
parliamentary taxation of whatever sort for revenue as unconstitutional. The ministry preferred
to believe that the colonists would be content with the removal of the stamp duties. Although
the Rockingham people kept their concessions to a minimum and although they did everything
possible to reduce the importance of those concessions, repeal would have been defeated had it
been opposed by George III. The king told his personal followers who held offices connected
with the ministry that they must in honour support it; he advised his other friends that they
were free to do as they chose. The result was a narrow victory for the ministry, the Commons
and the Lords giving reluctant consent.
The grievances of the Americans were by no means fully removed, and the concessions that
were made were offered grudgingly. Nevertheless, the colonists very generally accepted them
as a basic settlement of the crisis. They joyfully celebrated the repeal, and they enthusiastically
reaffirmed their allegiance to Britain. They also eagerly resumed buying goods from the
merchants of London, Bristol, and Liverpool. They were happy to escape from the crisis so
easily and so creditably. For a time they had little to say about the grievances that continued.
Of course, they would not be permanently satisfied with the situation as it was in the spring of
1766, their ideas of their rights within the empire would inevitably enlarge with the passage of
time, and further concessions on the part of Britain would have been necessary to preserve a
more or less permanent peace within the empire. Given time, the Rockingham people might
have been able to establish a basic principle of conciliation in British policy. They were not
granted the opportunity, being deprived of it by Pitt and George III, who drove them from
power and established the ministry of “All the Talents” in July 1766.
It is difficult to say whether Britain and America would have found a modus vivendi had Pitt
enjoyed both health and authority for a few years after 1766. The majesty of Britain meant
much to him, and the warmly friendly language he had become accustomed to use regarding
the colonists does not constitute proof that he would not have undertaken measures that were
repugnant to them. Certainly, the constitutional position he had assumed did not preclude steps
obnoxious to the Americans. Pitt inadvertently assisted in bringing into office men inclined
toward the American philosophy of Bute, Bedford, and Grenville. Some historians have
observed that they and their monarch were somewhat more moderate with respect to America
than has been generally recognized. Nevertheless, this new group of officeholders, including
Charles Townshend and the 3rd earl of Hillsborough, supplied impetus in the ministry of “All
the Talents” toward a second attempt to tax the colonists for revenue and also toward the use of
the army for repression in America. Although Pitt’s friend, Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd duke
of Grafton, continued as its head until 1770, Pitt’s people never actually controlled the
ministry. Their leader was too sick to supply leadership and resigned from the cabinet in 1768.
Except for the earl of Shelburne, they did not very vigorously protest against governmental
measures that brought on a second Anglo-American crisis.
The Townshend duties

zoom_in
Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd duke of The Grafton ministry adopted an energetic American
Grafton, after an original painting by J.
Hopper, engraving by E. Bocquet
policy, thanks in part to Townshend, who pushed through
Mary Evans Picture Library Parliament in the spring of 1767 his famous duties on tea,
glass, lead, and papers. These import taxes were
forthrightly declared to be for the purpose of raising revenue. Thus, Townshend revived a great
constitutional issue without hope of collecting more than a small fraction of the funds
necessary to maintain the army in America. Moreover, the first proceeds from the duties were
to be used to pay the salaries of British officials in America, toward buttressing British
authority there, rather than to defray military expenses. Townshend was also responsible for an
act setting up an American Board of Customs Commissioners, which zealously functioned at

Boston after November 1767.
The Grafton ministry further antagonized the colonists by

zoom_in securing the passage, in May 1767, of the Suspending Act,
Charles Townshend
Charles Townshend. which prohibited the New York legislature from conducting
benoitb—Digital Vision/Getty Images
any further business until it complied with the provisions of
the Quartering Act. In addition, three more admiralty courts were created in 1768, at Boston,
Philadelphia, and Charleston. In the spring of that year, the same ministry established a new
western limit upon American expansion, a boundary described in part by the courses of the
Ohio and Kanawha rivers; it permitted settlement well beyond the Proclamation Line of 1763.
Much more serious was a cabinet decision, announced simultaneously, to redistribute the army
in America. Its commander in chief, Gen. Thomas Gage, had hitherto employed it against the
colonists on only one occasion. In 1765 he had ordered a detachment at Fort Pitt to drive away
pioneers who had settled beyond the Proclamation Line of 1763. He had carefully avoided
using troops against the Stamp Act rioters, although he had brought 450 men into the
settlements in order to make a show of strength in the event that American resistance became
rebellion. By 1768 the stationing of large numbers of British troops in the settled parts of the
colonies was risky. Nevertheless, toward securing economy and efficiency, the army in
America was reduced to 15 regiments, and Gage was ordered to station “large bodies, in the
provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, East Florida and in the middle colonies…to serve
effectually upon any emergency whatever.” In consequence, Gage’s army was concentrated on
the eastern coast of North America. The phrase “any emergency whatever” included one in
which British soldiers would be used against the colonists.
Colonial resistance
Confronted by these actions by Parliament, which collectively became known as the

Townshend Acts, the Americans again resisted, but with less unanimity than in the time of the
Stamp Act troubles, for many cautious colonists, especially men of property who had been
alarmed by the rioting of 1765–66, were not disposed to struggle vigorously. The Americans
had not earlier made it clear that their argument against taxation without representation applied
to duties collected at their ports as well as the stamp tax. Following the leadership of John
Dickinson, whose Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British
Colonies appeared in many colonial newspapers, they now defined their constitutional position
with greater precision. Both internal and external levies for revenue were unconstitutional;
only duties to control commerce were within the powers of Parliament.
The colonists demanded repeal of the Townshend duties.

zoom_in They also denounced the proposed use of part of the
Townshend Acts
An American colonist reading with proceeds of the duties to pay the salaries of royal officials
concern the royal proclamation of a
tax on tea in the colonies, part of the
as subversive of their established system of government.
Townshend Acts; political cartoon, The Americans were also unhappy because their
Boston, 1767.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images commerce was increasingly cramped. The American
commissioners of the customs after November 1767, and
the new admiralty courts after 1768, displayed zeal and energy. British rules governing
shipping were enforced almost to the last burdensome technicality, with the result that colonial
ships and cargoes were frequently seized for minor violations. Since various British officials
received shares of the profits of such seizures, they were accused, and with a show of reason in
some cases, of despoiling American merchants. Toward securing the repeal of the Townshend
duties, the colonists again resorted to a boycott upon British goods. As they hoped, British
manufacturers and merchants asked Parliament for repeal. The colonists also again employed
minor physical violence and the threat of it to coerce British officials and those colonists who
supported them. In the spring of 1768, the unpopular customs commissioners in Boston
claimed that they were gravely menaced and asked for military protection. The ministry
ordered Gage to put two regiments in the city and sent two more from Ireland.
The British government moved vigorously in the summer

zoom_in of 1768. There was then, and for many months thereafter,
public acknowledgement of
nonimportation agreement much talk in London about compelling the colonists to
violation
obey. However, sentiment in the ministry was quite
A notice from New York merchant
Simeon Coley on July 22, 1769, divided. Townshend was no longer alive to insist that his
publicly acknowledging his violation of
the nonimportation agreement that

duties be collected, and his successor, Lord Frederick
had been established by colonists in
response to the duties imposed under North, disliked extreme measures. In the spring of 1769
the Townshend Acts.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Gage was given authority to remove the troops from
Boston, and it was announced that the Townshend duties
would be substantially withdrawn. On March 5, 1770, North introduced a bill repealing all of
the duties except that on tea. He said that the Townshend taxes were injurious to trade and
therefore ought to be set aside. However, he declared that the duty on tea had to be retained in
order to assert the right of Parliament to impose external taxes for revenue. Parliament
complied, conceding enough to put an end to the second Anglo-American crisis.
The Boston Massacre

zoom_in
British warships landing troops in There was an ominous incident in Boston, however, on
Boston, 1768; engraving by Paul
Revere.
the very day that North brought forward his repeal
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. measure. Because the royal governor, Thomas
(neg. no. LC-USZ62-134241)
Hutchinson, asked that troops be kept in Boston, some of
those sent into the city were kept there until March 1770. Tension developed between the
soldiers and civilians, leading on March 5 to the Boston Massacre, in which British soldiers,
assaulted by civilians throwing stones and chunks of ice at them, killed three Bostonians and
mortally wounded two others. A Boston jury found two of the soldiers guilty of manslaughter,
and the shedding of blood by the troops widened the gap between Britain and America.
The Gaspee
zoom_in
Boston Massacre No other incident of note occurred until June 1772, when
The Boston Massascre as depicted in
a colour engraving by Paul Revere,
Rhode Islanders demonstrated their hostility to royal
who plagiarized the design from measures. On June 9 the Gaspee, a schooner used in
engraver Henry Pelham.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. customs enforcement, pursuing a smuggling vessel, ran
(LC-DIG-ppmsca-01657)
aground below Providence, Rhode Island. Illegal trade
had become extensive in Narragansett Bay. That night
the merchant John Brown headed a party of Providence men who boarded and burned the
Gaspee as it thus lay helpless. Rewards of £1,000 were offered for proof of the identity of the
ringleader, and Brown was put under arrest. But the influence of his powerful family brought
about his release, and a commission of inquiry which sat in Newport and Providence failed to
amass any real evidence. Such breakdowns of the law irritated the British authorities.
Indications that if the commission had succeeded, the lawbreakers would have been taken to
Britain for trial equally irritated the Americans.
The colonies join hands
When later in the year Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts announced that the home
government would provide the salaries of the governors and superior court justices, many men
felt outraged. The legislature was determined to keep such officers under check, but it could
not do this if their pay came from Britain. Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others, overruling
the more conservative John Hancock, appealed to the Massachusetts towns. The Boston town
meeting, under their inspiration, created a Committee of Correspondence to communicate with
the smaller towns and with other provinces. Thus a mighty engine was brought into existence.
Other provinces one by one formed similar committees until the continent was knit together by
their network. The Virginia burgesses led the way by appointing a standing body for
intercolonial exchanges, with Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee among
the members. Early in 1774 all the colonies but two, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, shared
in the web.
The Boston Tea Party

zoom_in
Richard Henry Lee The Townshend tax on tea was an irritation, but most of
Richard Henry Lee, portrait by Charles
Willson Peale, 1784; in Independence
the colonists preferred not to quarrel about it. They drank
National Historical Park, Philadelphia. beverages made from smuggled Dutch tea and even some
Courtesy of the Independence National
Historical Park Collection, Philadelphia made from taxed British tea. However, it should have
been apparent in London that no new important step with
respect to the colonies should be undertaken without careful consideration. Twice British
measures had led to American resistance, and twice Britain had bent. It would be difficult for
Britain to yield a third time. Nevertheless, the Americans were tried once more. As head of the
ministry after 1770, North behaved cautiously for many months, then pushed through his
remarkable Tea Act of 1773. It rearranged the regulations so that the East India Company
could pay the Townshend duty on tea and still undersell the Dutch smugglers. Further, the East
India Company planned to sell its tea only to certain favoured colonial merchants and thus
added the issue of monopoly, vexing American merchants who were not among those chosen.
When ships carrying the tea began to reach American harbours in the fall of 1773, the
colonists generally were determined to prevent its sale. If they permitted the extraction of
some thousands of pounds from their pockets by means of the Townshend duties, would not
Parliament devise other taxes to inflict upon them? Nowhere in the colonies was the tea landed
and sold. Boston reacted vigorously. To make sure that it would not be sold there, townsmen of
Boston disguised as Mohawk Indians held their Tea Party and tossed 342 chests of tea into the
harbour. Similar parties were held later in other ports.
The Intolerable Acts

zoom_in
Boston Tea Party In London the news that the colonists had again defied
The Boston Tea Party (1773) in
Boston Harbor, as depicted in a
Parliament and had also destroyed British property was
Currier & Ives lithograph. exasperating. The North ministry undertook to punish
MPI/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Boston, a centre of American recalcitrance, and to
buttress British authority in Massachusetts. Finding no way to proceed against the disguised
participants in the Tea Party, the king’s advisers hit upon the device of inflicting a penalty upon
a city for the behaviour of its citizens. The result was the Boston Port Bill, which closed the
harbour of that city after June 1, 1774, until it displayed proper respect for British authority.
Toward bringing Massachusetts to heel, the ministry later pushed through the Massachusetts
Government Act, which would have made Massachusetts a standard royal province and which
violated its charter of 1691.
Other acts, in order to provide for troops who were to be

zoom_in sent into the colony to maintain order, contained new
American Revolution: political
cartoon arrangements for quartering and made possible a change
Cartoon depicting Lord North, with the
Boston Port Bill extending from a
of venue to another colony or to Britain for a soldier or a
pocket, forcing tea (representing the British official indicted for crime while executing the
Intolerable Acts) down the throat of a
major measures. General Gage was appointed governor
female (figure representing the of the colony, instructed to put the punitive laws into
American colonies).
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. effect, and authorized to station troops in Boston to cow
(neg. no. LC-USZC4-5289)
its inhabitants. The other colonies were to take warning
from these measures, variously called by Americans the Coercive Acts or Intolerable Acts.
The Quebec Act, passed at the same time, was not

zoom_in actually related to the other acts, but it was lumped
Boston Harbor
British ships guarding Boston Harbor together with them by the colonists. It alarmed the
in 1774.
North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy
colonists because it established an authoritarian
government for Quebec and confirmed the privileges of
the Roman Catholic Church. It also extended Quebec’s boundaries down to the Ohio River.
Boston refused to pay for its Tea Party, and Massachusetts rose
zoom_in in revolt. Its lower house, also refusing to pay for the Tea Party,
Province of Quebec, 1774
Province of Quebec, 1774. issued a call for a Continental Congress. When Gage tried to
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
organize a new royal council, in the summer of 1774, its
members outside Boston were forced to resign. Some were imprisoned. Royal authority
collapsed, except in the city and its vicinity, where Gage prepared for armed conflict. By the
beginning of September, the men of Massachusetts were obviously ready to fight rather than
yield. Gage had already begun to fortify Boston against possible attack, but he was not strong
enough to move against the colonists. He continued to bring in soldiers until he had gathered
the bulk of his army in Boston.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts lower house also prepared for war. In October 1774 it took
control of the province outside Boston. Assuming the guise of a provincial congress, it became
in effect a revolutionary government. Writing to his superiors in London, Gage told them that
if they chose to use the army to break down resistance, they should send many reinforcements,
for all of New England would fight, and fight well. Besides, he said, it was quite possible that
the other colonists would help the New Englanders. Alternatively, he proposed that Britain
subdue the rebellious spirit in the colonies by imposing a naval blockade. A third solution,
which he did not endorse, was to make concessions, as had been done in 1766 and 1770. He
made it clear that Britain must make a great decision.
The reports that reached London from the other colonies in the fall of 1774 and the following
winter were not much more encouraging. As the danger of war approached, many colonists
chose to align themselves with Britain, joining the relatively few who had earlier supported the
mother country. But these loyalists, as they were called, were in the minority and were quite
unable to check the patriots, as those who opposed British policy were called. Following the
example of Massachusetts, the patriots everywhere began to turn the lower houses of their
legislatures into revolutionary bodies; they organized committees of safety; they dealt harshly
with aggressive loyalists; they sent protests to London; and they elected delegates to the First
Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia in the fall of 1774.
Revolution and independence

The First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress gave the patriot cause greater breadth, depth, and force. Its 56
members, representing all of the colonies except Georgia, were lawyers, country gentlemen,
and merchants, respectable and responsible men, and America followed them. They made it
clear that Britain would not be permitted to subdue Massachusetts without interference by the
other colonies. They demanded repeal of the Intolerable Acts and the Quebec Act and
described them, together with several other measures taken after 1764, as unconstitutional.
They called for a return to the “good old days” of 1763. But they wanted more than that. They
urged that the crown abandon its right to name the councillors in the royal colonies. They
questioned the authority of Parliament much more forthrightly than had the Stamp Act
Congress but carefully refrained from petitioning it for redress. The Congress did, however,
send an appeal to the crown and an address to the British people. It also endorsed a declaration
of rights, which accused the British government of violating colonial charter rights, the rights
of British subjects, and the natural rights of mankind. The inclusion of natural rights was of the
greatest importance. Hitherto, the colonists had chosen to rely principally upon the rights of
British subjects, although some of their leaders had earlier invoked the rights of mankind.
English law and custom had not turned out to be impregnable bastions of American liberties.
The Americans were moving away from the narrower argument concerning the rights of
British subjects toward the more fundamental one of the natural rights of man.
One of the decisions taken by the Congress was

zoom_in extraordinary. Calling upon Britain once more to repent
George Washington and the
Continental Congress and repeal, it devised what it called the Association.
George Washington (middle)
surrounded by members of the
Defenders of American liberty were urged to associate to
Continental Congress, lithograph by prevent the importation or consumption of goods from
Currier & Ives, c. 1876.
Currier & Ives Collection, Library of Britain or the British West Indies after December 1,
Congress, Neg. No. LC-USZC2-3154
1774, and, if Britain failed to give ground, to stop the
exportation of colonial products, except for rice, to the
same places after September 10, 1775. Since the will of the Congress was everywhere
respected, there followed the remarkable spectacle of 13 colonies carrying on an organized
boycott of British goods. Arranging to reconvene in May 1775 to take whatever further steps
might be necessary, the delegates went home in October 1774. During the winter months the
patriots began to prepare for battle.
Parliament’s response
In Parliament early in 1775, Pitt, Edmund Burke, and John Wilkes urged the justice and
necessity of reconciliation with America. The opposition solemnly warned against trying to
solve the problem by military force. Its speakers predicted that the colonists would fight, and
they voiced the fear that France and Spain would seize the opportunity of an Anglo-American
war to retrieve the losses they had suffered in the Seven Years’ War. British manufacturers and
merchants also urged an attempt to please the Americans, for they felt the effects of the
American boycott. George III and his political allies had double the votes of their opponents in
Parliament, however, and the decision was in their hands. As early as November 1774, the
king had expressed his conviction that Britain must assert its sovereignty. Most of his advisers
took the same stand and were even eager to use force. They scoffed at the arguments of an
opposition that sympathized with the Americans, because both were seen as enemies of the
ministry. With the support of the monarch and of a large segment of public opinion, they swept
on to action. The king and his ministry chose not only to employ force but to place their
reliance upon the army, ignoring the advice of Gage and well-informed military men in
Britain, and overcoming the reluctance of Lord North and his stepbrother, William Legge, 2nd
earl of Dartmouth, who had become colonial secretary in 1772. Lord William Barrington, the
secretary at war, expressed grave doubt that Britain could put enough soldiers in the field to
overrun the colonies and suggested a naval blockade as a more appropriate means of coercion.
North and Dartmouth wished to avoid bloodshed. In the end, they could not stand against the
will of their associates, but the prime minister insisted that the employment of the army be not
undertaken without a gesture toward conciliation. Parliament gave its support to both
economic and military coercion.
So it was that Britain, which had been tempted three times to seek a settlement by arms, at
length plunged into war. Parliament also endorsed, reluctantly, Lord North’s conciliatory
resolution, which declared that Parliament would in the future refrain from taxing any colony
which through its assembly supplied its fair share of funds necessary for imperial defense. It
was addressed separately to each colony, a device inevitably interpreted by the colonists as
intended to cause division among them. No message was sent to the Continental Congress.
One was sent to Gage, who was ordered to make vigorous use of the troops he had available.
In accordance with his instructions, received on April 14, 1775, he ordered a detachment of
700 men to march to Concord to destroy patriot military supplies there. Forewarned, patriot
militiamen gathered to oppose the king’s troops, and the running Battles of Lexington and
Concord followed on April 19.
The decision for independence

zoom_in
Battle of Lexington Fifteen months after the beginning of hostilities, the
A line of minutemen being fired upon
by British troops during the Battle of
Second Continental Congress proclaimed American
Lexington in Massachusetts, April 19, independence. Before 1775 the patriots generally desired
1775.
© 1903 John H. Daniels & Son, Boston/ to remain within the British Empire. As the war went on,
the majority of them became convinced that their
(pga-00995)
happiness was better assured outside the empire. They
were driven to seek a complete separation by various forces and considerations: the shedding
of blood by British troops; attacks by the British navy upon American shipping, sailors, and
ports; the enlistment by Britain of African American soldiers, Native American auxiliaries, and
German (Hessian) mercenary troops; the increasing conviction among the patriots that Britain
would not accept an accommodation; the belief that if agreement with Britain were reached, it
could not be relied upon; and a sound opinion that it was necessary to proclaim independence
in order to secure assistance from France and Spain. They moved toward the assertion of
independence reluctantly and hesitatingly. They felt an emotional attachment to Britain; they
knew that the imperial connection had brought them protection; they feared that foreign aid
might lead to foreign domination; and many of them were alarmed lest independence bring
with it economic and social leveling. Independent, they must form a stable republican
government in an area extending for a thousand miles along the Atlantic seaboard. Could it be
done?
Months after the shooting had begun many of the patriots were still hoping that Britain would
offer acceptable peace terms. They wished to believe that Adm. Richard Howe and Gen.
William Howe, brothers who were appointed peace commissioners in 1776, would bring with
them satisfactory bases for a settlement. However, as it became evident that Britain placed its
chief reliance upon force of arms, the main body of the patriots kept pace. Word that the
colonies had been declared to be in a state of rebellion in August 1775 had its effect, and news
of the passage of the Prohibitory Act of November 1775, which withdrew the king’s protection
from the colonies and declared them under naval blockade, had a profound impact. By January
1776 the sober-minded George Washington had decided he would be satisfied with nothing
less than separation. Revolutionary governments in the colony-states and the Second
Continental Congress cut ties with Britain, one by one, and at length on July 2, 1776, the
Congress, speaking for all America, severed the last one, declaring, “These United Colonies
are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.” Two days later it gave its approval
to the Declaration of Independence, wherein the patriots set forth the reasons for the action
they had taken.
In the Declaration of Independence the patriots rested

zoom_in their case solely on the natural rights of mankind and the
Declaration of Independence
Declaration of Independence, oil on

law of contract. Setting aside Parliament as a “pretended”
canvas by John Trumbull, 1818; in the
U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. The legislature, Thomas Jefferson and the Congress proved to
members of the Continental Congress
signed the Declaration of
their own satisfaction that George III had grossly violated
Independence in Philadelphia on July the compact and invoked the right of revolution.
4, 1776.
Architect of the Capitol
Howe’s peace mission
zoom_in General Howe landed on Staten Island on the very day

Committee of Congress. Drafting that the Congress declared independence. He and his
the Declaration of Independence
Committee of Congress. Drafting the brother were not empowered to negotiate with the
Declaration of Independence. patriots until the rebellion had been crushed, except to
Depiction of the drafters in
Philadelphia in 1776: (left to right) offer pardon to those who would lay down their arms.
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams,
But the terms they were authorized to offer after the
Benjamin Franklin, Robert R.
Livingston, and Roger Sherman. collapse of resistance were very interesting. They could
(LC-DIG-pga-00249) pardon all rebels and restore the royal protection, and
they were to demand that Rhode Island and Connecticut
be made royal colonies, or at least that their governors should not take office until approved by
the crown. Here were no concessions to the Americans. However, the commissioners were
also permitted to make a proposal with respect to money. The heart of it came from Lord
North’s conciliatory resolution if the colonies (except for Georgia, which was not to be asked
to pay anything) would undertake to pay 10 percent, even 5 percent, of the cost of maintaining
the imperial army, navy, and ordnance, they would not be taxed for revenue by Parliament. The
bargain might have seemed attractive to many defenders of American rights before the war. As
it was, it was not even presented to the patriots, since they were not beaten into submission.
Assuming that there was no ministerial intention to deceive, these proposals indicate an
intention to try to conciliate the colonists after the close of hostilities. Ignorant of the terms, the
patriots were left to imagine what their fate would be should they be defeated. That the terms
were not publicly announced was a remarkable failure of British propaganda. Military failure
followed.
The antagonists compared

zoom_in
William Howe John Montagu, 4th earl of Sandwich, the first lord of the
William Howe, 1778.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. admiralty, during parliamentary debates early in 1775,
declared that the British army could easily subdue the
colonists. The view of Lord Barrington, not accepted by his superiors, that reliance should be
chiefly placed on a naval blockade, was, as history has revealed, good advice, since it would
have cost Britain less in blood and treasure to lose the war by placing its faith in naval
blockade than it actually did. Nor is it by any means certain that Barrington’s plan would not
have brought victory. A blockade that seriously hurt the American economy, without taking
American lives, might not have driven the colonists to seek independence and might have led
ultimately to an Anglo-American accommodation. In any event, there would have been profits
from American ships and cargoes seized, and money saved by using the army only as
auxiliary. Nevertheless, the ministry agreed with Sandwich, tried to overrun the colonies,
failed to achieve that goal, and at last had to acknowledge defeat.
Employing means sanctified by tradition to put down the rebellion, Britain did not toss away
all its chances for success. Britain possessed important advantages even in the sort of war that
it waged after 1775. Its population was about four times that of the American colonies.
Moreover, perhaps no more than half the Americans were firm patriots, one-fourth of them
being neutral and another one-fourth being adherents of the British government. On the other
hand, there was not much enthusiasm in Britain for the war until France intervened. Britain
had a navy that the patriots could not hope to challenge; its government was a long-established
one; it could manufacture all necessary military equipment; it had great economic wealth; and
it had both cash and credit. Other sources of strength were the experience of its army and naval
officers and the possession of thousands of veterans who had fought on land and sea. On the
other hand, the patriots were able to put more men in the theatres of warfare than Britain, even
though thousands of loyalists had rallied to the British colours. In very few battles of the war
were the Americans outnumbered. Moreover, the patriots could and did send ships and sailors
to sea to strike heavy blows at the British merchant marine. They had sufficient basic wealth to
carry on a long struggle, although they had difficulty in putting that wealth to military use, as
American cash and credit were not plentiful.
Geography heavily favoured the Americans, because the 3,000 miles (4,800 km) of water that
lay between them and the British Isles imposed a great supply problem on the British and
made communication between the British officers in the field and their superiors in London
slow and uncertain. The very bulk of the colony-states militated against British success.
Another most important asset for the Americans was the fact that the loss of several of their
cities would not seriously diminish their capacity for resistance. America was in shape and
substance something like a serpent without vital organs. It was especially advantageous to the
patriots that they could fall back into the interior, gaining strength as they retreated, while the
British forces necessarily dwindled as they pursued, being compelled to maintain bases and
supply lines. The British army was to lose several major battles in the interior. Furthermore, it
was not necessary for the Americans to destroy the forces of Britain; it was only needful for
them to keep the field until Britain should grow weary of the conflict. In addition, the patriots
were familiar with their own country, and their cause aroused in many of them a superb and
abiding devotion.
The turning point
From the military and diplomatic points of view, the turning point of the war came with Gen.
John Burgoyne’s signing of the Convention of Saratoga in October 1777 and the resulting
decision of the French government in February 1778 to enter into an alliance with the
Americans. The coming into the war of France, and then Spain, as enemies placed new and
heavy burdens on Britain. The defeat of Burgoyne and the approaching entrance of France into
the conflict caused alarm in London and led to the sending of the Carlisle Commission to offer
the Americans autonomy within the empire, a proposal that failed to attract the Congress. It
also forced the British army and navy in America to remain on the defensive during most of
1778.
The shape of things to come loomed when a French fleet

zoom_in from Toulon under Charles-Hector, comte d’Estaing,
Surrender of General Burgoyne
at Saratoga crossed the Atlantic, temporarily depriving Britain of
Surrender of General Burgoyne (at
Saratoga, New York, October 17,
easy control of North American waters. However, the
1777), oil on canvas by John Trumbull, French admiral failed to achieve anything. Immediately
1821; in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda,

before d’Estaing’s arrival, Admiral Richard Howe and
Washington, D.C.
Architect of the Capitol Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded William
Howe, executed an order to evacuate Philadelphia. With
the bulk of the army, Clinton had marched across New Jersey, beaten off an attack by
Washington in the Battle of Monmouth, and had safely reached New York, where he was
joined by Lord Howe. Washington and d’Estaing laid plans for a land and sea attack upon New
York but could not execute them. They were also prevented from carrying through a joint
assault upon Newport. The French fleet sailed off to the West Indies. Reappearing in North
American waters in 1779, d’Estaing participated in a Franco-American assault upon Savannah
that was bloodily repulsed by a British garrison. In 1780, after the British had evacuated
Newport, a French squadron established itself there, with a small French army. The possibility
that the French navy might secure control, even temporarily, of American waters and
cooperate effectively with the patriots seriously disturbed Clinton.
Mindful of the French menace, Clinton, who had on

zoom_in occasion displayed brilliance and dash as a subordinate,
George Washington at the Battle
of Monmouth was cautious as a commander in chief. He made hardly
George Washington at the Battle of
Monmouth (1778) during the American
more than a gesture of attacking Washington, who
Revolutionary War. hovered about New York from 1778 to 1781. Except in
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
the far south, Clinton waged a war of endurance, to
which he added extensive raiding operations in Connecticut and Virginia and efforts to seduce
American leaders. What would have been the ultimate outcome of such a policy uniformly and
steadily applied is difficult to say. By 1780 the Continental currency had become worthless,
and the Congress was unable to pay its soldiers regularly. Supplies had to be requisitioned
from the states. Even so, it is by no means certain that Britain would have outlasted the patriots
in a war of endurance, for the British also felt financial strain. The war might have ended less
rapidly and less dramatically, but with the same result.
War in the south

zoom_in
Sir Henry Clinton, engraving As it happened, Clinton did not insist that his cautious policy be
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
executed in the southern states. He permitted Lord Cornwallis to
embark upon aggressive adventures in the southern interior, for there were many loyalists in
the Carolinas and Georgia, and the patriot forces were weak in those states. At the end of 1778,
a British expedition under Clinton’s orders captured Savannah, and it became increasingly
apparent to Clinton that larger British forces could take Charleston. In the spring of 1780 an
army under Clinton with an accompanying fleet surrounded the city and compelled its
surrender, together with more than 5,000 patriot soldiers. Its fall stunned the patriots of South
Carolina and Georgia, and patriot resistance in the two states temporarily collapsed. Stimulated
to further activity, Clinton established garrisons in a number of forts in their interior.
Compelled to return to New York, he left Cornwallis in command in the far south, telling him
to defend the new conquests and to undertake no ventures so expensive that the British grip on
South Carolina and Georgia would be endangered. He also informed Cornwallis that he might
take command of British raiding contingents in Virginia, in the event that it became advisable
to do so.
Had Clinton remained in the far south, the British army

zoom_in there would have been primarily devoted to preservation
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess and
2nd Earl Cornwallis. of the gains already made, but Cornwallis was of
© Photos.com/Jupiterimages
different stuff. He was brave and bold, a fighting man
rather than a thoughtful one. The British hold upon South Carolina and Georgia was soon
threatened, the patriots of the two states turning to partisan warfare, with larger patriot forces
advancing to their assistance from northward. At Camden, South Carolina, in August 1780,
Cornwallis routed an American army under Gen. Horatio Gates moving out of North Carolina.
His easy victory persuaded him to invade the interior of North Carolina. When a detachment of
1,000 loyalists that advanced with him was surrounded and destroyed in the Battle of King’s
Mountain in the fall of that year, he had to fall back. He might then prudently have remained
on the defensive, in consonance with the spirit, if not the letter, of his orders. Instead, receiving
reinforcements, he drove a second time into the interior of North Carolina. Nor did he stop
when a British detachment of more than a thousand men under Col. Banastre Tarleton was
routed by Gen. Daniel Morgan at Cowpens in January 1781.
Cornwallis aggressively pursued Morgan, and, when Morgan joined Gen. Nathanael Greene,
who had assumed command of the Continental troops in the South, he drove on after Greene.
He pursued Greene to the Virginia boundary, although his own army was wasting away from
hardship and disease. When he at last turned back, Greene, reinforced, followed him. At
Guilford Courthouse, in March, Cornwallis with about 1,900 men, less than half the troops
with whom he had started, attacked Greene with 4,500 men and finally forced him back.
However, Cornwallis could not stay in the interior of North Carolina. Prudence and his orders
rather clearly dictated that he retreat and defend the British conquests in South Carolina and
Georgia. Instead, he led the remains of his army to the North Carolina seacoast and then to
Virginia to undertake a new adventure, consigning the task of protecting the British gains in
the far south to his subordinates.
Yorktown
zoom_in
American Revolution In Virginia Cornwallis encountered disaster. Adding British
Final campaigns in the South.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
raiding contingents there to the men he led from North Carolina,
he collected an army of 7,000 troops, campaigned vigorously
against the patriots without decisive achievement, and then built a base at Yorktown. Clinton
told him that he ought to leave a part of his men to garrison the base and to lead the remainder
northward. Cornwallis declared that his whole force was needed to defend Yorktown, and
Clinton let him have his way. Then Cornwallis was swiftly surrounded by land and sea. A
powerful French fleet under Admiral François-Joseph-Paul, comte de Grasse, came to the
Chesapeake from the West Indies. This fleet was superior to that of the British at New York.
Adm. George Rodney, commanding in the West Indies, failed to send enough ships after de
Grasse to restore the balance, and de Grasse was able to push away the New York fleet from
the mouth of the bay. The French squadron at Newport joined him. Washington moved rapidly
southward with the French soldiers from Newport and several thousand Continentals. With
these, the patriots in Virginia, and soldiers brought by de Grasse, he had 17,000 men to prevent
the escape of Cornwallis by land and lay siege to Yorktown. Franco-American attacks carried
the outer fortifications of Yorktown. A British relief expedition set out from New York, but it
was too late and probably too weak to save Cornwallis. He surrendered on October 19, 1781.
The British recognized Yorktown as decisive.

zoom_in Aggressiveness in the American interior had brought
Trumbull, John: Surrender of Lord
Cornwallis heavy losses and few gains, and aggressiveness on the
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis (at
Yorktown, October 19, 1781), oil on
coast had led to defeat. Without the appearance of the
canvas by John Trumbull, completed French fleet, would the outcome have been different? The
in 1820.
Architect of the Capitol bold Cornwallis was not achieving much before the
appearance of the French. His energy mercifully helped
to bring the war to a swifter end in America.
The Treaty of Paris
The military verdict in North America was reflected in the preliminary Anglo-American peace
treaty of 1782, which was included in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. Benjamin Franklin, John
Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens served as the American commissioners. By its terms
Britain recognized the independence of the United States (and the demise of the American
colonies) with generous boundaries, including the Mississippi River on the west. Britain
retained Canada but ceded East and West Florida to Spain. Provisions were inserted calling for
the payment of American private debts to British subjects, for American access to the
Newfoundland fisheries, and for a recommendation by the Congress to the states in favour of
fair treatment of the loyalists.
Most of the loyalists remained in the new country. Perhaps as many as 37,000 Tories migrated
to Canada, and smaller numbers went to Britain or the British West Indies. Many of these had
served as British soldiers, and many had been banished by the American states. The less ardent
and more cautious Tories, staying in the United States, accepted the separation from Britain as
final and could not be distinguished from the patriots after the passage of a generation. The
loyalists were harshly treated as dangerous enemies by the American states during the war and
immediately afterward. They were commonly deprived of civil rights, often fined, and
frequently deprived of their property. The more conspicuous were usually banished upon pain
of death. The British government compensated about 2,300 loyalists for property losses,
paying out about £3,300,000. In addition, it gave loyalists land grants, pensions, and
appointments to enable them to reestablish themselves.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Jeff Wallenfeldt, Manager, Geography and History.
Citation Information
Article Title:
American colonies
Website Name:
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher:
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published:
02 March 2020
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https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-colonies
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June 02, 2021

American Colonies - 5

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02/06/2021 American colonies -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Relations between Britain and the colonies had not been

zoom_in chronic. The colonists had steadily striven to achieve

New colonial policy

It is doubtful that so many troops were needed in

The uprising led by Pontiac (1763–64) stimulated action

Trade with Native Americans

Regulation of maritime trade

Grenville taxes of 1764

The Bedford-Grenville ministry wished to either secure

The Stamp Act

The Quartering Act

Conflicting views of the new policy

Some historians have argued that the new British policy

The Stamp Act crisis

Had Grenville been in power when news reached London

Repeal of the Stamp Act

The Townshend duties

act setting up an American Board of Customs Commissioners, which zealously functioned at

The Grafton ministry further antagonized the colonists by

Confronted by these actions by Parliament, which collectively became known as the

The colonists demanded repeal of the Townshend duties.

The British government moved vigorously in the summer

the nonimportation agreement that

The Boston Massacre

The colonies join hands

The Boston Tea Party

The Intolerable Acts

Other acts, in order to provide for troops who were to be

The Quebec Act, passed at the same time, was not

Revolution and independence

One of the decisions taken by the Congress was

The decision for independence

In the Declaration of Independence the patriots rested

Declaration of Independence, oil on

zoom_in General Howe landed on Staten Island on the very day

The antagonists compared

The turning point

The shape of things to come loomed when a French fleet

1821; in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda,

Mindful of the French menace, Clinton, who had on

War in the south

Had Clinton remained in the far south, the British army

The British recognized Yorktown as decisive.

The Treaty of Paris

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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