Greetings Looks like another multiple answer - my mail box just filled up... Thank you one and all for your responses: do I hear whetstones in the background, I wonder?!! I agree, Ann, that <<the key (to colonial revolt) is to be found ... shortly after .. 1763 (when) Britain began to tighten control of the 13 colonies.>> I suspect we will disagree about why the Brits wanted to tighten up control, though. One of the main reasons was that colonial smuggling had enabled the French to keep up the Seven Years' War for longer than she would have done without colonial cash. Britain had had "absolute control of the seas" for a long time - we kept sinking French ships whenever they were daft enough to go into open seas ... Likewise, most colonies had self-government, under the Crown (through the Governor, appointed by Britain), so the Crown had every right to pass legislation. The one piece of British legislation that wasn't criticised until 1776 was the Declaratory Act of 1766. The problem was cash - the colonists didn't want to pay up for British troops, for the Navigation Laws, for anything really. However, how could Britain treat the American colonies differently from other colonies (Canada, India, the West Indies) without setting a dangerous precedent herself? Much of the British national debt of £140 million had accrued through defending the American colonies against French encroachment - surely Britain had a right to expect the colonists to help pay it off?? The USA certainly expected us to cough up after 1945 when we were flat broke after fighting for 6 years, two of it totally alone, against Nazi Germany!! RSTEW (best I can do!) - I did mention the convicts, actually ("Others ended up in the colonies because they were sent there by our legal system: transportation. That was hardly a voluntary act!"). Fortunately, by 1776, my great ggg grandfather - yes, really, but I lose count of the "greats" - (Captain Cook) had discovered Australia and we had somewhere else to send them... They were cheaper than slaves, I suppose. A lot of people didn't get rich in the colonies, either - and had to stay. Now do we congratulate or commiserate there? We all know that many thousands of Irish people were "helped" to America during the Famine by landlords in Ireland - but doesn't the Statue of Liberty have an inscription about "sending your homeless, poor" and such?? I must find a copy of "Fatal Shore": I don't have one. "Cyberbay" - thanks for the letter: it's wonderful! May I use it on my web site, please - and if so, do you have the reference?? How true is the story I heard about Mrs Jefferson refusing marital rights to Thomas, until he'd finished writing the Declaration of Independence? I think I recall that the women made gunpowder for the troops. Jim - thanks for the welcome! I'll have a look for the Montross book when I go back to the University library: there should (ha!!) be a copy in there. I just knew that I'd get that wrong about "rebels". I'm sure I read somewhere that Sam Adams (or at least, one of the colonial leaders) said that one third of the colonists wanted independence, a third didn't and the other third didn't really care - so the "rebels" had a real task getting people to support them, which is why they resorted to violence and bullying. If it didn't bring forth support, at least it kept their opponents quiet. Also, didn't we try to get the colonies to work together in 1754 with the Congress of Albany, but failed miserably? Of course the Brits wanted their cake and to eat it - but at least the colonies were "ours"!! Taxes in Britain? Loads of them. Honestly. Land tax stood at 4 shillings in the £, levied on all landowners - for every £1 their property was worth, they paid 4/- tax (that's 20%); everyone working paid into the Poor Rates for the relief of poverty (outdoor relief) - that varied with the price of bread; everyone paid a tithe (a tenth) of their produce/income to the Church of England whether they belonged to it or not, they also paid the same to the landowner as rent for their plots of land and cottages. All wage earners had to serve in the militia and a tax was levied to pay for that - every county had a militia, the number of men being fixed by law (the 1757 Militia Act). People also paid the window tax (on all windows in their houses - you can see tax evasion in practice in old houses where the windows have been bricked up!). The list of monopolies was endless so people paid indirect taxes on goods and through the nose. The tax on tea was 119% ad valorem, for example. Inheritance tax was levied here as well. Taxes had to be paid to the mill-owner to mill the flour, to the brewer to brew the beer, to the baker for his bread... However, we didn't pay income tax until the French Wars. I guess there wasn't a lot to choose between the two countries (unlike today, where we still pay through the nose!). Britain didn't have free trade until 1846 when the Corn Laws were repealed. We bought colonial tobacco - a ready market; ditto cotton, coffee, sugar. All imports to Britain were heavily taxed whether they came from the colonies or not - most of the government's annual revenue (of £30 million) came from these taxes. That's why people here starved to death when the American colonies imposed their non-importation agreements on British goods. They couldn't sell their produce to America and therefore couldn't afford to buy food, which was taxed to the hilt. Annie - why wouldn't thirteen separate colonies (rather than the USA, which didn't yet exist), not "stand for" dominion status? Canada and Australia have been dominions for about 100 years and it's not caused them problems until recently. The colonies would have had virtual self-government; only their foreign policy would have been controlled by Britain; the Governor-General would have been a figurehead, mainly. Both Canada and Australia have made the transition from colony to Dominion to independence fairly smoothly. If (now there's a word for an historian to conjure with!!) people had listened to Edmund Burke in 1775, would the war have happened? Rockingham had sorted out the major problem of 1765, Burke was his mouthpiece in the Commons. Wouldn't it have worked a second time?? Lester (and others) - help!! I thought Vermont was a "new settlement" - and illegal at that - in the 1760s, and that it came on the wrong side of the Proclamation Line in 1763. Was it part of New York? Similarly, I didn't think that Maine existed, but was another bit of Massachusetts in the 1760s. New Hampshire's governor was Wentworth, wasn't he? - related to "my Marquis". It's interesting that American contributors (colonial brethren) to this discussion blame George III directly for the Anglo-colonial problems. Now that didn't happen until the Declaration of Independence. Until then, most colonists used the traditional tactic of blaming "evil counsellors". Please tell me why modern Americans blame the poor king. All he did was support his various governments - and God knows, there were enough of them to make problems for the country (Britain, that is!). Ironically, after independence, American trade with Britain - now voluntary - quadrupled. That's what I call "awkward". Patti - "Braveheart" was a massacre of history and a travesty of truth. It bears little likeness to what really happened (a bit like the film where Americans find the Enigma machine, really). Anyway, Wallace was executed in 1305, and you can't equate what happened in the Middle Ages to 18th century events. The people in England who were most persecuted for their money were Jews - mainly because they had money and the monarchs didn't, but that again is the Middle Ages when life was cheap and people were dispensable. I'm not defending what happened; I will defend the principle that one can't impose modern values on the past. Torture chambers are a good pull for tourists, of course... although I'd agree that ten years' hard labour maybe is a bit harsh for stealing a rabbit. I think the Church of England was probably not best served by its attempt to impose Bishops on the colonies, since many colonists had left England to escape from religious persecution. I don't think that God can be blamed for what people do in His name, though. People are flawed, by nature. How much money did Patrick Henry make out of the "Parson's Cause" suit? I thought Virginia was an Anglican colony. The Quakers in Pennsylvania and the Congregationalists (?) in Massachusetts weren't persecuted for their beliefs and non-Anglicanism: why the difference in Virginia? I didn't realise you didn't have prayers in school. I thought they followed the Oath of Allegiance (is it?) Maybe one posting a week is enough from me: I'll have to start a word count and limit myself to a few comments... Cheers Marjie.