The Destruction Of The British Colonies In America After The Revolutionary War

Parliament virtually represented the British colonies in America from across the mid-Atlantic ocean. In 1760 George III became king of England at the young age of twenty-two and elected George Grenville to be his prime minister. The circumstances of the Seven Years War resulted in a large debt that needed to be taken care of. American colonies were scarcely affected by the wake of the war; they did not send men or supplies to aid the British in victory against France. To the American’s, Britain was in control of their fate and would be well equipped to ensure a future for themselves, as the Americans had struggled to do. Imperial authority looked to the West for support from their British subjects in the New World colonies. Grenville began to investigate import sales and revenues among customs officers and saw that customs officer’s salaries were four times what were collected in revenues. Discovering that a large part of the shortage was due to smuggling and bribery he enforced stricter
They believed that the British Empire solely used them for revenues. Some Americans rebelled peacefully by practicing non-consumption of British import goods and began to adapt to life without British merchandise. Others damaged thousands of dollars worth of trade-goods, an example of this is what happened in the Boston Harbor fall of 1773 when Bostonians disguised as Indians destroyed 90,000 pounds of teas in the harbor. These actions lead the British Empire to raise alarm, fearful of losing any more power, and passed the Intolerable Acts, consisting of four laws meant to punish Americans for destroying the tea and forced repayment for what had been lost. At this point Britain lost all influence with the American’s and the American’s knew they were truly meant to be left to their own liberty under colonial