Wood - The American Revolution Writings from the Pamphlet Debate Vol. 1 1764-1772 ed. Gordon S. Wood

I N 1763 Great Britain emerged from the Seven Years Waror the French and Indian War, as the American colonists called itas the greatest and richest empire since the fall of Rome. From the Mediterranean to Manila, from Quebec to Havana, its armies and navies had been victorious, so much so that the British public concluded that its military forces were invincible. The Peace of Paris of 1763 compelled France to cede Senegal in West Africa and Dominica, Grenada, Tobago, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean to Britain; renounce all claims to compensation for British naval seizures during the war; destroy its fortifications at Dunkirk; return Minorca and other captured places to Britain; remove its armies from the German states of Hanover, Hesse, and Brunswick; and recognize British suzerainty over India. Most important, the treaty gave Britain undisputed dominance over the eastern half of North America. From the defeated Bourbon powers, France and Spain, Britain acquired huge expanses of territory in the New Worldall of Canada, East and West Florida, and millions of fertile acres between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. At the same time France turned over to Spain New Orleans and the vast territory of Louisiana in compensation for Spains loss of the Floridas. Thus France, the most fearsome of Britains enemies, was entirely removed from the North American continent.

The wars end left many American colonists feeling more British, more proud of their membership in the great Protestant empire, than ever before. They had celebrated the accession of the new king George III in 1760 with more enthusiasm than most of their fellow subjects at home three thousand miles away. And home for many colonists was still Great Britain. Although unprofessional provincial soldiers and sometimes haughty British regulars had often clashed during the war, the overwhelming victory over the Catholic Bourbon powers and, perhaps more important, Prime Minister William Pitts policy of reimbursing the colonists for their financial expenditures, had helped to ease much of the colonists anger at British arrogance. Bostons liberal minister Jonathan Mayhew, who earlier had spoken out passionately against unlimited submission to the higher powers, now exulted in the outcome of the war. He, like many colonists, foresaw the growth of a mighty empire (I do not mean an independent one) in numbers little inferior perhaps to the greatest in Europe, and in felicity to none.

Suddenly, however, the British government was faced with the imposing task of organizing and financing this huge empire, especially the colonies and territories on the North American continent. In the aftermath of the Seven Years War British officials found themselves forced to make long-postponed decisions concerning the North American colonies, decisions that would set in motion a chain of events that ultimately shattered this grand empire and created the United States of America.

The patchwork of territories now known as the first British Empire took shape over the course of the seventeenth century without the benefit of much in the way of central planning. The Crown simply chartered private companies, or granted proprietary rights to individuals, to create colonies that would promote the public interests of the realm. But by the second half of the century the English government began trying to exert tighter control over its colonies, principally through a series of Navigation Acts designed to channel colonial trade and shipping for the benefit of the mother country. The colonists were required to purchase manufactured goods made in Britain, and they were obliged to send to Britain certain enumerated commoditiesexotic staples such as tobacco, rice, furs, and sugarto satisfy its markets before selling them elsewhere. Since commerce remained the dominant business of the empire, its power was felt mainly at the seaports.