There are seven parts in the process to approve a bill in England: the first debate and reading, the second debate and reading, the committee stage, the report stage, the third debate and reading, the agreement between both Houses to the same bill, and the royal assent. This article is about the first three stages […]
In 1763, the powers of Europe signed the Peace of Paris bringing an end to the French and Indian War. The Kingdom of Great Britain emerged victorious, seizing from France several new territories throughout Canada and east of the Mississippi. But victory came at tremendous cost. The war debt incurred over the last seven years […]
On November 16, 1775, Robert Dixon lay dying not far from Quebec. Among the first American troops commissioned by the Continental Congress, he was a sergeant in Matthew Smith’s Company of Thompson’s Rifle Battalion. The previous July, he had walked with his company from the backcountry of Pennsylvania all the way to Boston, a distance […]
General Charles, 1st Marquess, Cornwallis remains one of the most recognizable British figures of the American Revolution. Over the past two centuries, he has come to be invariably known as one of the “men who lost America.” This appellation has greatly overshadowed his less heralded service in Parliament, India, Europe, and Ireland. In Parliament, during […]
1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton (Knopf, 2020) Although previous works have tried to draw attention to “The Missing 16 Months” between the Boston Tea Party in December of 1773 and the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April of 1775, Cornell history professor Mary Beth Norton argues in her latest […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Steven Neill on William Pitt’s 1767 proposal to tax the East India Company and strengthen trade with the American colonies and how the company influenced Parliament’s decision to set aside Pitt’s plan. Instead, Parliament decided to levy taxes on the colonies through the Townshend Acts. Thousands of […]
India, the fabled land of rubies, diamonds, gold, tigers, and mystery, captured the imagination of the British people in the mid 1700s. Robert Clive provided fodder for gossip when he returned to England in 1760 with a reported “£1,200,000 in cash, bills, and jewels. He is said to be the richest subject in the three […]
The year was 1773. On May 10, Parliament had passed the Tea Act allowed the East India Company to sell tea directly to the American colonies without paying any customs or duties in England. This gave the company a monopoly over the production, distribution, and sale of tea. The colonists saw the Act as a […]
George Washington wrote “no event was ever received with a more heart felt joy” after hearing about the official alliance between the fledgling United States and the world power France.[1] It’s well established that foreign aid both before and after 1778 was crucial to America’s struggle for independence: not only did the French and other […]
