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(12) What were the general European wars corresponding to the four intercolonial wars - and what were their causes ?

(13) Account of a fleet engagement between the English and the French. (14) Life on a British man-of-war about 1750. (15) Account of an Indian raid on a frontier town. (16) The "casket girls" in Louisiana. (17) Germans in Louisiana. (18) English captives taken to Canada. (19) Attack on Carthagena, 1741. (20) Contemporary accounts of Braddock's defeat; of the capture of Quebec. (21) Early New Orleans. (22) Defeat of Pontiac. (23) British war with the French in India, 1756-1763.

REFERENCES

See maps, pp. 121, 131; Thwaites, France in America; Semple, Geographic Conditions, 36-46.

Hart, Formation of the Union, §§ 12-20; Fisher, Colonial Era,
236-240, 286-291; Sloane, French War and Revolution, 22-115;
Lodge, English Colonies, 30-36, 109-111, 223-225, 307–310, 367-
371; Thwaites, France in America; Fiske, New France and New
England, 233-359; Parkman, Frontenac, 184-452,- Half Cen-
tury of Conflict, Montcalm and Wolfe, – Pontiac, I. 69–567, II. ;
Wilson, American People, II. 58–61, 68–97; Gay, Bryant's History,
III. 192-221, 254-328; Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 342–366, ·
Mississippi Basin; King, Sieur de Bienville; Griffis, Sir William
Johnson; Lodge, George Washington, I. 1-14, 54-118; Johnson,
General Washington, 1–66. See also references to ch. iv.
Hart, Source Book, §§ 37-40, -

129,

Contemporaries, II. §§ 22, 109

-

- Source Readers, I. § 42, II. §§ 24-32, 34, 37-44; MacDonald, Select Charters, nos. 51, 52, 54; American History Leaflets, no. 14; Old South Leaflets, nos. 9, 73; Caldwell, Surveys, 39–43, Territorial Development, 12-23. See N. Eng. Hist. Teachers' Ass'n, Syllabus, 316, Historical Sources, § 75.

Eggleston, American War Ballads, I. 14–20 ; Longfellow, Evangeline; Whittier, Pentucket; Gilbert Parker, Trail of the Sword (Canada), Seats of the Mighty (French and Indian War); William Kirby, Golden Dog (Canada); W. J. Gordon, Englishman's Haven (Louisburg); Hawthorne, Grandfather's Chair, pt. ii. chs. vii.-X., - Old News, pt. ii.; James McHenry, The Wilderness (Ohio country); B. E. Stevenson, Soldier of Virginia (Braddock and Washington); J. E. Cooke, Stories of the Old Dominion, 110-139; C. E. Craddock, Old Fort Loudon; Cooper, Last of the Mohicans, - Pathfinder; Kirk Munroe, At War with Pontiac. Winsor, America, V.; Wilson, American People, II.; Sparks, Expansion.

CHAPTER IX.

QUARREL WITH THE MOTHER COUNTRY (1763-1774)

104. New forces in the British

THE period from 1760 to 1765 is a turning point in the history both of England and of America, for it marks the beginning of a feeling of hostility between these two parts of the British Empire. The first strong and positive sovereign since William III. was the young George III., who came to the throne in 1760, and said, in a public address, "Born and bred in this country, I glory in the name of Briton." His mother used to say to him, "George, be a king"; and as soon as he could, he rid himself of the ministry of noble Whig families who controlled both houses of Parliament, and he began systematically to build up a personal government.

Opposed to the king's policy was a group of brilliant statesmen, of whom the most famous were William Pitt (later Earl of Chatham), Charles James Fox, and Edmund Burke; they

GEORGE III., ABOUT 1765.

From a painting by Sir William
Beechy.

counseled wise and moderate dealing with the colonies. Notwithstanding this opposition, for a long time the king by shrewd means, by bestowing titles here, appointments there, reproofs to a third man, and banknotes where other things

Empire

failed, was able to keep up in the House of Commons a majority, usually called "the king's friends."

On the western side of the Atlantic a new spirit began to stir among the colonists when the danger of invasion by French neighbors ceased forever in 1763. As the French statesman Turgot said (1750), "Colonies are like fruits, they stick to the tree only while they are green; as soon as they can take care of themselves they do what Carthage did and what America will do." These latent tendencies to independence were strengthened by the attempt of the home government to assert new powers of government over the colonies. The colonial officials in England resented the slowness and lack of united action shown by the colonial assemblies during the French and Indian War, and felt that it would be better for them all to pay money into one treasury, for general colonial purposes.

lation of

colonial trade

Up to this time the principal British control over the colonies as a whole had been exercised through the navigation acts. 105. Regu- Notwithstanding the special privileges thereby given to colonial ships, the acts caused friction, because they cut off colonial trade and profits in order to swell the trade and profits of English merchants. The home government was aware that smuggling went on, and tried to stop it; but even the little duties laid by the home government in colonial ports, to give some control over the movements of ships, were so evaded that it cost £7000 a year to collect £2000. To prevent the rise of new manufactures the British (1750) prohibited the colonists from using rolling mills and steel furnaces; and in 1774 stopped the coming in of machinery for making cloth.

In order to detect smugglers, British customs officers in the colonies were accustomed to go to the courts and ask for a general writ of assistance, which authorized them to search any private buildings for suspected smuggled Rights" goods; without such searches the navigation acts could hardly be carried out. In a test case before the Massachusetts

106. Claim of "Inalienable

courts in 1761, a brilliant and able young lawyer, James Otis,
argued against the writs on the novel ground that they were
contrary to the principles of English law: "Reason and the
constitution are both against this writ. . . . All precedents
are under the control of the principles of law. . . . No
Acts of Parliament can establish such a writ. ... An
act against the constitution is void." John Adams said
of him, "Otis was Isaiah and Ezekiel united — Otis was a
flame of fire-Otis's oration against writs of assistance breathed
into this nation the breath of life.”

John

Adams, Works, II.

Notwithstanding Otis's argument, the writs of assistance were again issued in Massachusetts; but his speech and his later pamphlets stated three principles of great weight in the approaching Revolution: (1) that the colonists possessed certain inalienable personal rights; (2) that there was a traditional system of colonial government, which could not be altered by Great Britain without the consent of the colonies; (3) that under that system the colonies were united to Great Britain through the same sovereign, but were not a dependent part of Great Britain, nor subject to Parliament.

525

In accordance with the practice of a century and a half, the home government about this time disallowed a statute of Virginia which reduced the stipends of the established clergy. A test case was made (1763), commonly called "the Parson's Cause," in which Patrick Henry got his first reputation and won the jury by an argument that there was a limit to the legal control of the mother country over colonial legislation. In a bold and significant phrase he declared that Contempora "a King, by . . disallowing acts of so salutary a na- ries, II. 106 ture, from being the Father of his people degenerates into a Tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience."

Another danger to the freedom of the colonies came from a new spirit in the Lords of Trade. When Charles Townshend was chairman for a short time (February to April, 1763),

107. Pro-
posed con-
trol of colo-
nial govern-
ments
(1763)

he worked out a comprehensive plan for controlling the colo-
nies. (1) Armed vessels were to be sent to the American
coast, and the naval officers were to be commissioned as
revenue officers. (2) A new system of admiralty courts
was to be set up, to deal more effectively with breaches
of the Acts of Trade. (3) A force of troops was to be
stationed in America for common defense at the expense
of the colonies. (4) Steps were to be
taken to appoint and pay the colonial
judges from England, so as to free them
from control of the colonial assemblies.
(5) For the necessary expenses a stamp
duty was to be laid on the colonies.
None of the proposed measures were car-
ried out at the time.

108. Taxation and the Stamp

Act

GREAT-GRANDMOTHER'S

DRESS.

Another danger was brought on by the activity of Lord George Grenville, when he became prime minister in April, 1763. The Molasses Act of 1733, essentially a measure to protect (1763-1765) the sugar planters of the British West Indies, was by the Sugar Act of 1764 made more stringent and extended to coffee and other tropical products. In this act Grenville inserted the statement that it was "just and necessary " that a tax be laid in the colonies. In 1765 he informed the agents of the colonies that he meant to lay a stamp duty unless they would suggest some other form of taxation. Without much objection, an act of Parliament was passed (March, 1765) for "certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, toward further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same." The duties were to be imposed on all sorts of legal documents, law