George III Quotes
Once vigorous measures appear to be the only means left of bringing the Americans to a due submission to the mother country, the colonies will submit.
George III. The Correspondence of King George the Third with Lord North from 1768 to 1783. Edited by W. Bodham Donne, vol. 1, John Murray, 1867, p. 227.
This was written more than a year before the American Revolution Battles began. It took time to ship the men and supplies to America and the British did not handle that task with much efficiency. See {636926} for another of the King’s statements.
This appears to be one of the first uses of the word "United" with respect to what was to become the United States.
The simplistic view that the American colonists were patriots and the British were the colonizers against whom the colonists revolted is not really accurate. The American colonists were polarized into patriots and loyalists. The Loyalist Americans ranged from many of those merchants whose business depended upon England, those whose family were still in England, those whose religion made them loyal to the Church of England, slaves who would be free under British law, Americans who had strong cultural and intellectual ties to England and those Americans who were great believers in monarchy and whose honor required that they fulfill the oath that they had taken to the King of England. Some of the worst atrocities of the American Revolution occurred in the battles of these Americans against each other. See {82105} for more on this point.
Fox was one of the opposition leaders who were opposed to the heavy handed policies that the British King and Government had used.
This is a very interesting quotation. A contemporary historian tells us how rapidly the American colonists organized when Parliament passed the Tea Tax. Even with the Internet and social media it would be hard to organize representation from 13 states that fast today. The word of mouth and mail of the day was surprising to most of us. The passion on the issue and the public interest must have been extraordinary. Ramsay was the first major historian of the American Revolution.
The British had closed Boston Harbor until the English merchants who lost their goods at the Boston Tea Party were paid for their damages. A convention was called to discuss a response to the closing of Boston Harbor and New York City convened a public meeting to come up with instructions for their delegates to the conference. One amazing thing was that they advocated a boycott of English goods. What was amazing was that there was no nation and New York and Massachusetts were separate entities and sectionalism was rife, yet New Yorkers were willing to sacrifice to help Bostonians. The New York sacrifice was all the greater because most of the imports from England landed at New York harbor where there was work created for New Yorkers and business for New York companies. New York stood to lose the most with a boycott. Philadelphia which also advocated a boycott, lost little as they were not a harbor for imports. New Yorkers also provided assistance to their competitors, the Bostonians who were out of work. See {589413}.
This resolution was the trigger that began the debate which became the Declaration of Independence.
This resolution of independence was voted upon a month before the Declaration of Independence. It was approved by 12 of the colonies but not by New York. The Congress appointed a committee to draft what became the Declaration of Independence and that was approved by all the colonies. The resolution was introduced by Richard Henry Lee on instructions from Virginia. The graphic is of Lee’s original notes.
Wilkes was a strong advocate for the American cause—so much so that some in Parliament tried to deny him his seat in Parliament for his disloyal point of view.
While the official battles of the American Revolution did not begin until 1776, parts of the American colonies were in a de facto state of rebellion and the British could not enforce their laws. See {636925} for another of the King’s statements.
Today, most Americans know little of Samuel Adams but see John Adams as a much larger and more important figure. But for the American Patriots fighting the Revolution, it was Sam Adams who made the most outstanding contributions to the political strategy and leadership.
This is the same man who introduced the Stamp Act 12 years before which started the whole problem in America. See {74956}.
George III was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was a monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors, he was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.
