The history of the Seven Years' War…
1763 CE
Groups
Topics
Subjects
Regions
Northern North America
View →Subregions
Northeastern North America
View →Related Events
Active Filters
No active filters.
Refine Results
Showing 10 events out of 26310 total
News of Manila's capture does not reach Europe until after the Treaty of Paris; as such no provision has been made regarding its status.
During the siege, the Spanish lieutenant governor had agreed to a four million payment in silver dollars to the British known as the Manila Ransom in exchange for sparing the city.
The full amount however will never be paid when word of what had happened in the Philippines reaches Europe.
The British expedition, however, is rewarded after the capture of the treasure ships Filipina, carrying American silver from Acapulco, and, in a battle off Cavite, the Santísima Trinidad, which carried China goods.
The cargo is valued at $1.5 million and the ship at $3 million.
The Spanish government demandw compensation for crimes committed against the residents of Manila during the occupation and the controversy over the ransom demanded by the British and the compensation demanded by the Spanish will last many years. The twenty month occupation of Manila will end in 1764.
During the siege, the Spanish lieutenant governor had agreed to a four million payment in silver dollars to the British known as the Manila Ransom in exchange for sparing the city.
The full amount however will never be paid when word of what had happened in the Philippines reaches Europe.
The British expedition, however, is rewarded after the capture of the treasure ships Filipina, carrying American silver from Acapulco, and, in a battle off Cavite, the Santísima Trinidad, which carried China goods.
The cargo is valued at $1.5 million and the ship at $3 million.
The Spanish government demandw compensation for crimes committed against the residents of Manila during the occupation and the controversy over the ransom demanded by the British and the compensation demanded by the Spanish will last many years. The twenty month occupation of Manila will end in 1764.
The war in central Europe is by 1763 essentially a stalemate between Prussia and Austria.
Prussia has retaken nearly all of Silesia from the Austrians, and after Frederick's 1762 victory at the Battle of Burkersdorf he holds most of Saxony but not its capital, Dresden.
His financial situation is not dire, but his kingdom is devastated and his army severely weakened.
His manpower has dramatically decreased, and he has lost so many effective officers and generals that an offensive against Dresden seems impossible.
British subsidies have been stopped by the new prime minister, Lord Bute, and the Russian emperor has been overthrown by his wife, Catherine, who ends Russia's alliance with Prussia and withdraws from the war.
Austria, however, like most participants, is facing a severe financial crisis and has to decrease the size of its army, something which greatly affects its offensive power.
Indeed, after having effectively sustained a long war, its administration is in disarray.
By this time, it still holds Dresden, the southeastern parts of Saxony, and the county of Glatz in southern Silesia, but the prospect of victory is dim without Russian support and Maria Theresa has largely given up her hopes of re-conquering Silesia.
After protracted negotiations between the war-weary powers, peace was made among Prussia, Austria, and Saxony at Hubertusburg, a Rococo palace in Saxony, and among Great Britain, France, and Spain at Paris.
Prussia has retaken nearly all of Silesia from the Austrians, and after Frederick's 1762 victory at the Battle of Burkersdorf he holds most of Saxony but not its capital, Dresden.
His financial situation is not dire, but his kingdom is devastated and his army severely weakened.
His manpower has dramatically decreased, and he has lost so many effective officers and generals that an offensive against Dresden seems impossible.
British subsidies have been stopped by the new prime minister, Lord Bute, and the Russian emperor has been overthrown by his wife, Catherine, who ends Russia's alliance with Prussia and withdraws from the war.
Austria, however, like most participants, is facing a severe financial crisis and has to decrease the size of its army, something which greatly affects its offensive power.
Indeed, after having effectively sustained a long war, its administration is in disarray.
By this time, it still holds Dresden, the southeastern parts of Saxony, and the county of Glatz in southern Silesia, but the prospect of victory is dim without Russian support and Maria Theresa has largely given up her hopes of re-conquering Silesia.
After protracted negotiations between the war-weary powers, peace was made among Prussia, Austria, and Saxony at Hubertusburg, a Rococo palace in Saxony, and among Great Britain, France, and Spain at Paris.
The stalemate had really been reached by 1759–1760; Prussia and Austria are nearly out of money.
The materials of both sides have been largely consumed.
Frederick is no longer receiving subsidies from Britain; the Golden Cavalry of St. George has produced nearly thirteen million dollars (equivalent).
He has melted and coined most of the church silver, has ransacked the palaces of his kingdom and coined that silver, and reduced his purchasing power by mixing it with copper.
His banks' capital is exhausted, and he has pawned nearly everything of value from his own estate.
While Frederick still has a significant amount of money left from the prior British subsidies, he hopes to use it to restore his kingdom's prosperity in peacetime; in any case, Prussia's population is so depleted that he cannot sustain another long campaign.
Similarly, Marie Theresa has reached the limit of her resources.
She had pawned her jewels in 1758; in 1760, she had approved a public subscription for support and urged her public to bring their silver to the mint.
French subsidies are no longer provided.
Although she has many young men still to draft, she cannot conscript them and does not dare to resort to the impressment Frederick has done.
She has even dismissed some men because it is too expensive to feed them.
The materials of both sides have been largely consumed.
Frederick is no longer receiving subsidies from Britain; the Golden Cavalry of St. George has produced nearly thirteen million dollars (equivalent).
He has melted and coined most of the church silver, has ransacked the palaces of his kingdom and coined that silver, and reduced his purchasing power by mixing it with copper.
His banks' capital is exhausted, and he has pawned nearly everything of value from his own estate.
While Frederick still has a significant amount of money left from the prior British subsidies, he hopes to use it to restore his kingdom's prosperity in peacetime; in any case, Prussia's population is so depleted that he cannot sustain another long campaign.
Similarly, Marie Theresa has reached the limit of her resources.
She had pawned her jewels in 1758; in 1760, she had approved a public subscription for support and urged her public to bring their silver to the mint.
French subsidies are no longer provided.
Although she has many young men still to draft, she cannot conscript them and does not dare to resort to the impressment Frederick has done.
She has even dismissed some men because it is too expensive to feed them.
A peace settlement is reached in 1763 at the Treaty of Hubertusburg, in which Glatz is returned to Prussia in exchange for the Prussian evacuation of Saxony.
This ends the war in central Europe.
The Treaty of Hubertusburg, though it restores the prewar status quo, marks the ascendancy of Prussia as a leading European power.
Through the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain emerges as the world’s chief colonial empire, which is its primary goal in the war, and France loses most of its overseas possessions.
The phrase "Hubertsburg Peace" is sometimes used as a description for any Treaty that restores the situation existing before conflict broke out.
This ends the war in central Europe.
The Treaty of Hubertusburg, though it restores the prewar status quo, marks the ascendancy of Prussia as a leading European power.
Through the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain emerges as the world’s chief colonial empire, which is its primary goal in the war, and France loses most of its overseas possessions.
The phrase "Hubertsburg Peace" is sometimes used as a description for any Treaty that restores the situation existing before conflict broke out.
Catherine throws her support behind Stanisław Poniatowski as her chosen candidate for the Polish throne.
Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski was born on January 17, 1732, in Wołczyn, then located in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and now part of Belarus, to Stanisław Poniatowski and Konstancja (née Czartoryska) Poniatowska.
The Poniatowski family of the Ciołek coat of arms is among the highest of the Polish nobility (szlachta).
He had spent the first few years of his childhood in Gdańsk; afterward, his family had moved to Warsaw.
He had been educated by his mother, then by private tutors, including Russian ambassador Herman Karl von Keyserling.
He did not have many friends in his teenage years; instead, he had developed a fondness for books, which is to continue throughout his life.
He had made his first foreign voyage in 1748, when he accompanied the Russian army as it advanced to Germany.
During that trip he visited Aachen and the Netherlands.
Later that year he returned to the Commonwealth, stopping in Dresden.
Poniatowski spent the following year as an apprentice in the chancellery of Michał Fryderyk Czartoryski, then the Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania.
In 1750, he had traveled to Berlin, where he met the British diplomat Charles Hanbury Williams, who became his mentor and friend.
In 1751, Poniatowski was elected to the Treasury Tribunal in Radom, where he served as a commissioner the following year.
He spent most of January 1752 at the Austrian court in Vienna.
Later that year, after serving at a Radom Tribunal and meeting with King Augustus III of Poland, he was a sejm (Polish parliament) deputy.
During that Sejm his father had acquired for him the title of starost of Przemyśl.
In March 1753 he left on another foreign trip, this time through Hungary to Vienna, where he met Williams again.
He spent more time in the Netherlands, where he met many key members of that country's political and economical sphere.
By late August he arrived in Paris, where he had again entered the high social circles.
In February 1754 he left Paris and traveled to England, where he spent the next few months.
There he befriended Charles Yorke, future Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.
He returned to the Commonwealth later that year, this time not participating in the Sejm, as his parents wanted to keep him out of the political drama surrounding the Ostrogski family's fee tail (Ordynacja Ostrogska).
Next year he received a title of stolnik of Lithuania.
Ultimately, Poniatowski owes his career to his family connections with the powerful Czartoryski family and their political faction, known as Familia, to whom he has grown closer.
It was the Familia who had sent him in 1755 to Saint Petersburg in the service of Williams, who had been named British ambassador to Russia.
Poniatowski had met the twenty-six-year-old Catherine Alexeievna (the future empress Catherine the Great) in Saint Petersburg in 1755, and the two became lovers.
Whatever his feelings for Catherine, it is likely Poniatowski also saw an opportunity to use the relationship for his own benefit, using her influence to bolster his career.
Poniatowski had had to leave St. Petersburg in July 1756 due to court intrigue.
Through the combined influence of Catherine, Russian empress Elizabeth and chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Poniatowski had rejoined the Russian court as ambassador of Saxony the following January.
In St. Petersburg, he had become the source of more intrigue between various European governments, some supporting his appointment, others demanding his withdrawal.
Eventually, he left the Russian capital on August 14, 1758.
Poniatowski had attended the Sejms of 1758, 1760 and 1762.
He has continued his involvement with the Familia, and supports a pro-Russian and anti-Prussian stance in Polish politics.
His father had died in 1762, leaving him a moderate inheritance.
In 1762, when Catherine ascended to the Russian throne, she sent him several letters professing her support for his ascension to the Polish throne, but asking him to stay away from St. Petersburg.
Nevertheless, Poniatowski had hoped that Catherine would consider marriage, an idea seen as plausible by some international observers.
He had been involved with the unrealized plans of the Familia for a coup d'état against Augustus III.
In August 1763, however, Catherine had advised him and the Familia that she will not support a coup as long as Poland's King Augustus III is alive.
Upon the death of Augustus III in October 1763, negotiations begin concerning the election of the new king.
Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski was born on January 17, 1732, in Wołczyn, then located in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and now part of Belarus, to Stanisław Poniatowski and Konstancja (née Czartoryska) Poniatowska.
The Poniatowski family of the Ciołek coat of arms is among the highest of the Polish nobility (szlachta).
He had spent the first few years of his childhood in Gdańsk; afterward, his family had moved to Warsaw.
He had been educated by his mother, then by private tutors, including Russian ambassador Herman Karl von Keyserling.
He did not have many friends in his teenage years; instead, he had developed a fondness for books, which is to continue throughout his life.
He had made his first foreign voyage in 1748, when he accompanied the Russian army as it advanced to Germany.
During that trip he visited Aachen and the Netherlands.
Later that year he returned to the Commonwealth, stopping in Dresden.
Poniatowski spent the following year as an apprentice in the chancellery of Michał Fryderyk Czartoryski, then the Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania.
In 1750, he had traveled to Berlin, where he met the British diplomat Charles Hanbury Williams, who became his mentor and friend.
In 1751, Poniatowski was elected to the Treasury Tribunal in Radom, where he served as a commissioner the following year.
He spent most of January 1752 at the Austrian court in Vienna.
Later that year, after serving at a Radom Tribunal and meeting with King Augustus III of Poland, he was a sejm (Polish parliament) deputy.
During that Sejm his father had acquired for him the title of starost of Przemyśl.
In March 1753 he left on another foreign trip, this time through Hungary to Vienna, where he met Williams again.
He spent more time in the Netherlands, where he met many key members of that country's political and economical sphere.
By late August he arrived in Paris, where he had again entered the high social circles.
In February 1754 he left Paris and traveled to England, where he spent the next few months.
There he befriended Charles Yorke, future Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.
He returned to the Commonwealth later that year, this time not participating in the Sejm, as his parents wanted to keep him out of the political drama surrounding the Ostrogski family's fee tail (Ordynacja Ostrogska).
Next year he received a title of stolnik of Lithuania.
Ultimately, Poniatowski owes his career to his family connections with the powerful Czartoryski family and their political faction, known as Familia, to whom he has grown closer.
It was the Familia who had sent him in 1755 to Saint Petersburg in the service of Williams, who had been named British ambassador to Russia.
Poniatowski had met the twenty-six-year-old Catherine Alexeievna (the future empress Catherine the Great) in Saint Petersburg in 1755, and the two became lovers.
Whatever his feelings for Catherine, it is likely Poniatowski also saw an opportunity to use the relationship for his own benefit, using her influence to bolster his career.
Poniatowski had had to leave St. Petersburg in July 1756 due to court intrigue.
Through the combined influence of Catherine, Russian empress Elizabeth and chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Poniatowski had rejoined the Russian court as ambassador of Saxony the following January.
In St. Petersburg, he had become the source of more intrigue between various European governments, some supporting his appointment, others demanding his withdrawal.
Eventually, he left the Russian capital on August 14, 1758.
Poniatowski had attended the Sejms of 1758, 1760 and 1762.
He has continued his involvement with the Familia, and supports a pro-Russian and anti-Prussian stance in Polish politics.
His father had died in 1762, leaving him a moderate inheritance.
In 1762, when Catherine ascended to the Russian throne, she sent him several letters professing her support for his ascension to the Polish throne, but asking him to stay away from St. Petersburg.
Nevertheless, Poniatowski had hoped that Catherine would consider marriage, an idea seen as plausible by some international observers.
He had been involved with the unrealized plans of the Familia for a coup d'état against Augustus III.
In August 1763, however, Catherine had advised him and the Familia that she will not support a coup as long as Poland's King Augustus III is alive.
Upon the death of Augustus III in October 1763, negotiations begin concerning the election of the new king.
Sheikh Nasr Al-Madhkur, the Arab ruler of Bushehr, grants the British East India Company the right to build a base and trading post here in 1763.
The Third Carnatic War concludes with the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, which returns Chandernagore and Pondicherry to France, and allows the French to have "factories" (trading posts) in India but forbids French traders from administering them.
The French agree to support British client governments, thus ending French ambitions of an Indian empire and making the British the dominant foreign power in India.
The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of 1763, is signed on February 10, 1763 by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, after Great Britain's victory over France and Spain during the Seven Years' War.
The signing of the treaty formally ends the Seven Years' War, known as the French and Indian War in the North American theater, and marks the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe.
Great Britain and France each return much of the territory that they had captured during the war, but Great Britain gains much of France's possessions in North America.
Additionally, Great Britain agrees to protect Roman Catholicism in the New World.
The treaty does not involve Prussia and Austria as they sign a separate agreement, the Treaty of Hubertusburg, five days later.
Britain holds a dominant position at the negotiations, as they have during the last seven years seized Canada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, Pondicherry, Senegal, and Belle Île from the French and Havana and Manila from the Spanish.
Only one British territory, Minorca, is in enemy hands.
Despite suffering a year of defeats, Spain is prepared to fight on—something that their French allies are opposed to.
Bute proposes a suggestion that France cede her remaining North American territory of Louisiana to Spain to compensate Madrid for its losses during the war.
This formula is acceptable to the Spanish government, and allows Britain and France to negotiate with more legroom.
France and Spain both consider the treaty that ends the war as being closer to a temporary armistice rather than a genuine final settlement, and William Pitt describes it as an "armed truce".
Britain has customarily massively reduced the size of its armed forces during peace time, but during the 1760s a large military establishment will be maintained—intended as a deterrent against France and Spain.
The signing of the treaty formally ends the Seven Years' War, known as the French and Indian War in the North American theater, and marks the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe.
Great Britain and France each return much of the territory that they had captured during the war, but Great Britain gains much of France's possessions in North America.
Additionally, Great Britain agrees to protect Roman Catholicism in the New World.
The treaty does not involve Prussia and Austria as they sign a separate agreement, the Treaty of Hubertusburg, five days later.
Britain holds a dominant position at the negotiations, as they have during the last seven years seized Canada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, Pondicherry, Senegal, and Belle Île from the French and Havana and Manila from the Spanish.
Only one British territory, Minorca, is in enemy hands.
Despite suffering a year of defeats, Spain is prepared to fight on—something that their French allies are opposed to.
Bute proposes a suggestion that France cede her remaining North American territory of Louisiana to Spain to compensate Madrid for its losses during the war.
This formula is acceptable to the Spanish government, and allows Britain and France to negotiate with more legroom.
France and Spain both consider the treaty that ends the war as being closer to a temporary armistice rather than a genuine final settlement, and William Pitt describes it as an "armed truce".
Britain has customarily massively reduced the size of its armed forces during peace time, but during the 1760s a large military establishment will be maintained—intended as a deterrent against France and Spain.
Wilkes faces a charge of seditious libel over attacks on George III's speech endorsing the Paris Peace Treaty of 1763 at the opening of Parliament on April 23, 1763.
Wilkes is highly critical of the King's speech, which he attacks n an article of issue 45 of The North Briton.
The issue number in which Wilkes publishes his critical editorial is appropriate because the number 45 is synonymous with the Jacobite Rising of 1745, commonly known as "The '45". Popular perception associates Bute—Scottish, and politically controversial as an adviser to the King—with Jacobitism, a perception which Wilkes plays on.
The King feels personally insulted and orders the issuing of general warrants for the arrest of Wilkes and the publishers on April 30, 1763.
Forty-nine people, including Wilkes, are arrested, but general warrants are unpopular and Wilkes gains considerable popular support as he asserts their unconstitutionality.
At his court hearing he claims that parliamentary privilege protects him, as an MP, from arrest on a charge of libel.
The Lord Chief Justice rules that parliamentary privilege does indeed protect him and he is soon restored to his seat.
Wilkes sues his arresters for trespass.
As a result of this episode, people are chanting, "Wilkes, Liberty and Number 45", referring to the newspaper.
Parliament swiftly votes in a measure that removes protection of MPs from arrest for the writing and publishing of seditious libel.
Bute had resigned (April 8. 1763), but Wilkes opposes Bute's successor as chief advisor to the King, George Grenville, just as strenuously.
On November 16, 1763, Samuel Martin, a supporter of George III, challenges Wilkes to a duel. Martin shoots Wilkes in the belly.
Wilkes and Thomas Potter write a pornographic poem dedicated to the courtesan Fanny Murray entitled "An Essay on Woman" as a parody of Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man".
Wilkes's political enemies, foremost among them John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who is also a member of the Hellfire Club, obtains the parody.
Sandwich has a personal vendetta against Wilkes that stems in large part from embarrassment caused by a prank of Wilkes involving the Earl at one of the Hellfire Club's meetings; he is delighted at the chance for revenge.
Sandwich reads the poem to the House of Lords in an effort to denounce Wilkes's moral behavior, despite the hypocrisy of his action.
The Lords declare the poem obscene and blasphemous, and it causes a great scandal.
The House of Lords moves to expel Wilkes again; he flees to Paris before any expulsion or trial.
He is tried and found guilty in absentia of obscene libel and seditious libel, and will be declared an outlaw on January 19, 1764.
Wilkes is highly critical of the King's speech, which he attacks n an article of issue 45 of The North Briton.
The issue number in which Wilkes publishes his critical editorial is appropriate because the number 45 is synonymous with the Jacobite Rising of 1745, commonly known as "The '45". Popular perception associates Bute—Scottish, and politically controversial as an adviser to the King—with Jacobitism, a perception which Wilkes plays on.
The King feels personally insulted and orders the issuing of general warrants for the arrest of Wilkes and the publishers on April 30, 1763.
Forty-nine people, including Wilkes, are arrested, but general warrants are unpopular and Wilkes gains considerable popular support as he asserts their unconstitutionality.
At his court hearing he claims that parliamentary privilege protects him, as an MP, from arrest on a charge of libel.
The Lord Chief Justice rules that parliamentary privilege does indeed protect him and he is soon restored to his seat.
Wilkes sues his arresters for trespass.
As a result of this episode, people are chanting, "Wilkes, Liberty and Number 45", referring to the newspaper.
Parliament swiftly votes in a measure that removes protection of MPs from arrest for the writing and publishing of seditious libel.
Bute had resigned (April 8. 1763), but Wilkes opposes Bute's successor as chief advisor to the King, George Grenville, just as strenuously.
On November 16, 1763, Samuel Martin, a supporter of George III, challenges Wilkes to a duel. Martin shoots Wilkes in the belly.
Wilkes and Thomas Potter write a pornographic poem dedicated to the courtesan Fanny Murray entitled "An Essay on Woman" as a parody of Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man".
Wilkes's political enemies, foremost among them John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who is also a member of the Hellfire Club, obtains the parody.
Sandwich has a personal vendetta against Wilkes that stems in large part from embarrassment caused by a prank of Wilkes involving the Earl at one of the Hellfire Club's meetings; he is delighted at the chance for revenge.
Sandwich reads the poem to the House of Lords in an effort to denounce Wilkes's moral behavior, despite the hypocrisy of his action.
The Lords declare the poem obscene and blasphemous, and it causes a great scandal.
The House of Lords moves to expel Wilkes again; he flees to Paris before any expulsion or trial.
He is tried and found guilty in absentia of obscene libel and seditious libel, and will be declared an outlaw on January 19, 1764.
The British victory in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), known in America as the French and Indian War, has been won only at a great financial cost.
During the war, the British national debt has increased more than fourfold, rising from £72,289,673 (equal to £10.1 billion today) to almost £329,586,789 by 1764 (equal to £42 billion today).
Post-war expenses are expected to remain high because the Bute ministry decides in early 1763 to keep ten thousand British regular soldiers in the American colonies, which will cost about £225,000 per year, equal to £30 million today.
The primary reason for retaining such a large force is that demobilizing the army will put fifteen hundred officers out of work, many of whom are well-connected in Parliament.
This makes it politically prudent to retain a large peacetime establishment, but Britons are averse to maintaining a standing army at home so it is necessary to garrison most of the troops elsewhere.
Stationing ten thousand troops to separate American Indians and frontiersmen is one role.
The outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion in May 1763 apparently reinforces the logic of this decision, as it is an American Indian uprising against the British expansion.
The main reason to send ten thousand troops deep into the wilderness is to provide billets for the officers who are part of the British patronage system.
George Grenville becomes prime minister in April 1763 after the failure of the short-lived Bute Ministry, and he has to find a way to pay for this large peacetime army.
Raising taxes in Britain is out of the question, since there had been virulent protests in England against the Bute ministry's 1763 cider tax, with Bute being hanged in effigy.
The Grenville ministry therefore decides that Parliament will raise this revenue by taxing the American colonists without their consent.
This is something new; Parliament had previously passed measures to regulate trade in the colonies, but it had never before directly taxed the colonies to raise revenue.
During the war, the British national debt has increased more than fourfold, rising from £72,289,673 (equal to £10.1 billion today) to almost £329,586,789 by 1764 (equal to £42 billion today).
Post-war expenses are expected to remain high because the Bute ministry decides in early 1763 to keep ten thousand British regular soldiers in the American colonies, which will cost about £225,000 per year, equal to £30 million today.
The primary reason for retaining such a large force is that demobilizing the army will put fifteen hundred officers out of work, many of whom are well-connected in Parliament.
This makes it politically prudent to retain a large peacetime establishment, but Britons are averse to maintaining a standing army at home so it is necessary to garrison most of the troops elsewhere.
Stationing ten thousand troops to separate American Indians and frontiersmen is one role.
The outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion in May 1763 apparently reinforces the logic of this decision, as it is an American Indian uprising against the British expansion.
The main reason to send ten thousand troops deep into the wilderness is to provide billets for the officers who are part of the British patronage system.
George Grenville becomes prime minister in April 1763 after the failure of the short-lived Bute Ministry, and he has to find a way to pay for this large peacetime army.
Raising taxes in Britain is out of the question, since there had been virulent protests in England against the Bute ministry's 1763 cider tax, with Bute being hanged in effigy.
The Grenville ministry therefore decides that Parliament will raise this revenue by taxing the American colonists without their consent.
This is something new; Parliament had previously passed measures to regulate trade in the colonies, but it had never before directly taxed the colonies to raise revenue.
Loading...