American Tyrant
Discover the role played by King George III in pushing the American Revolution beyond the point of no return
All legal documents, newspapers, calendars and so forth were required to have stamps, which could only be paid for with either silver or gold despite paper money being the most common currency in the colonies.
The Stamp Act left many of the colonists furious. Why should they pay taxes when they had no form of representation in Parliament?
The argument that Parliament considered the interests of everyone, and that all English subjects had “virtual representation”, did not go down well at all – in fact, the colonists argued that the passing of the taxes with no representation had violated their rights “as Englishmen.” Protests against the Stamp Act rose quickly with colonists doing everything they could to ensure that it could not be enforced.
They refused to import British goods which affected trade, burned effigies of stamp tax distributors and threatened them with violence, to the point where attempts to collect the tax completely failed.
Many of these protests had been led and encouraged by the Sons of Liberty, an organisation created in reaction to the act, with the motto “no taxation without representation”. By October, representatives from nine of the 13 colonies had formed the Stamp Act Congress, which declared the act unconstitutional.
To make matters worse for Parliament trouble was also brewing at home with merchants expressing their anger over the act affecting their ability to trade with the colonies. Under increasing pressure from the colonists and their protests Parliament eventually repealed the act a year later on 18 March 1766. However that same day they also passed the Declaratory Act, asserting Parliament’s authority to tax the colonies. Clearly the battle was just beginning.
Just two months after enacting the Stamp Act, Parliament had also introduced the Quartering Act, which required the colonies to house the British Army.
In particular the New York colonial assembly refused to comply arguing that they had not be consulted about the army’s presence and that they had not given their consent.
The Quartering Act was not repealed like the Stamp Act, with Parliament deciding to punish New York for its defiance. They responded by introducing the New York Restraining Act,
“Many these protests had been led and encour aged by the Sons of Liberty”
which prevented the colony’s royal governor from approving legislation until the assembly complied with the law.
This new act was one of the Townshend Acts that Parliament enacted between 1767 and 1768, some of which enforced taxes on goods imported to the colonies from Britain, such as glass, paper and tea. The acts only served again to escalate tensions between Parliament and the colonies, who again argued that such taxation was unfair when they had no representation.
Following a riot in the town of Boston, Massachusetts, British troops were stationed there from 1768. Two years later, a confrontation between the soldiers and a mob of colonists led to the British firing into the crowd, resulting in the death of five Americans – an incident that became known as the Boston Massacre.
The rising American Revolution would witness one of its most defining moments with the passing of the Tea Act in May 1774. The Act enabled the British East India Company to sell tea in the colonies without paying the taxes mentioned in the Townshend Acts. Infuriated, a group of colonists chucked thousands of pounds worth of tea in the Boston Harbour, an incident that became known as the Boston Tea Party.
The Role of King George III
So, where exactly does King George fit into all of this rising tension?
It seems strange to think that, for a man with such a villainous reputation across the pond, that the king never set foot on the American continent or, for that matter, even ventured into either Scotland or Ireland – but that does not mean that he did not know how to interfere.
Following the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, Britain helped itself to French territory in North America. Now, George had to find a way to placate the Native Americans living there, as they had been loyal to the French during the war. He decided to issue the Royal Proclamation of 1763, forbidding any settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, therefore denying the
colonists the right to resources and land there.
Of course, the restriction placed on their migration upset the colonists, who were also angered by that the Proclamation prevented them from trading with the Native Americans, except from licensed traders. George’s intention had been to protect the indigenous people, but in the process, he had planted a seed of resentment among the colonists.
The king believed, following the conclusion of the war, that the settlement of America was Britain’s top priority, which led to Parliament’s decision to station an army there without the agreement of the colonial assemblies.
However George disagreed with the issuing of the Stamp Act and said that it was “abundant in absurdities”, although he had no choice but to assent to the act as he was unable to go against Parliament, which had granted the British crown to the Hanoverian dynasty only on condition that absolutism was consigned to the past.
Nonetheless George did support the policy of raising revenue from the colonies and he soon became frustrated following the Boston Tea
Party believing that Britain had become too lenient. He argued that stronger measures were needed to get the Americans, who had repeatedly resisted parliamentary authority, under control. Consequently Parliament enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774.
The Coercive Acts were a series of four acts designed to restore control in Massachusetts and in particular, punish the Bostonians for rebelling with the Tea Party. As a result Boston’s port was closed until the colonists had paid for the destroyed tea. Parliament would appoint the Massachusetts Governor’s council, the Royal Governor could prevent prosecution of British officials from occurring in Massachusetts and finally, all colonies had to provide housing for British troops stationed in America.
“an incident that became known as the Boston Tea Party”
Parliament had hoped that these measures would serve as a warning and prevent further rebellions against its authority. Instead the other colonies saw the acts as a violation of their rights and aroused sympathy for Massachusetts, subsequently turning even more colonists against the British.
The First Continental Congress formed in response to the acts, appealing to King George to stop them, while organising protests and a boycott of British goods. With anger rising, the king told his Prime Minister, Lord North, in November 1774 that “we must either master them or totally leave them to themselves and treat them as aliens.”
The situation finally came to a head on 19 April 1775. Hundreds of British troops had made their way to the town of
Concord, Massachusetts, hoping to seize the arms store used by the
Boston militia that had formed in the colony.
The British and the militia came face to face in the town of
Lexington, where a shot sparked the first battle of the war. Remembered as
“the shot heard round the world,” it was the moment when the battle lines had been drawn and there was no going back.
Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, a final attempt was made to appeal King George by the Second Continental Congress through the Olive Branch Petition, which was signed by the Congress on 8 July 1775. It was hoped that the petition would prevent further bloodshed and the beginning of an all-out war.
But the petition was too late. After receiving reports of the Battle of Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the king retaliated by issuing the Proclamation of Rebellion on 23 August 1775. He accused the colonies of “forgetting the allegiance which they owe to their power that has protected and supported them” and that they were in “open and avowed rebellion, by arraying themselves in a hostile manner.” For both sides, it was the final straw. Not only had George formally declared that the colonies were in rebellion, but he refused to even read the Olive Branch Petition and commented that the colonists had “strongest protestations of loyalty to me…whilst they were preparing for a general revolt”. Meanwhile the Congress and the rest of the colonists took the king’s refusal to look at the petition as evidence that he did not care about their problems.
Two months later, on 27 October, George spoke to both houses of Parliament and urged them to end the American revolt quickly. He firmly stated that “many of these unhappy people may still retain their loyalty, and may be too wise not to see the fatal consequence of this usurpations, and wish to resist it, yet the torrent of violence has been strong enough to compel their acquiescence, till a sufficient force shall appear to support them.” The king’s message was unmistakable – it was time to send the troops in.
As for the colonists, they began to take a more anti-monarchal stance thanks to a pamphlet, Common Sense, written by Thomas
“The Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject to British rule”
Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Published in January 1776, it successfully galvanised support for American Independence for the first time amongst the colonies. Up until then, the primary focus of the conflict for the colonists had been to assert their right to selfgovernance, not to gain independence.
Six months later, the Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on 4 July. The Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject to British rule and instead, they had become independent sovereign states, justifying their independence by listing their grievances against the king who they described as, “A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Was King George really a Tyrant?
Just like that, George had been painted as the tyrant who had driven the colonists to revolution, forever defined by the words written in the Declaration. In its wake, mock trials and executions of the king were held while his effigy was burned and buried across the colonies, his villainous reputation solidified. After all, it could be argued that it was easier for the Americans to justify a revolt against a tyrant than to try and fight on for reform.