Part II:
The Road to Revolution,
1763-1775
The Grenville Program, 1763-1765
In April 1763 George III had to abandon his chief minister and confidant, the hated Lord Bute, and turn the government over to George Grenville, leader of the largest Whig block in parliament and brother-in-law of William Pitt. Grenville's strengths were his knowledge of trade and public finance, a penchant for hard work and administrative detail, a systematic mind, and, in an era of corruption, integrity. His weaknesses were a cold personality and a limited conception of broad political and constitutional issues. It was said that Grenville lost the American colonies because he read the dispatches from America and was well acquainted with the growing economic maturation and apparent ability of the colonies to bear heavier taxes. George III, who disliked Grenville immensely, the more so because he had been forced to accept the Whigs, described him as a man "whose opinions are seldom formed from any other motives than such as may be expected to originate in the mind of a clerk in a counting house." An astute observer might have told George that with the national debt at £146,000,000 and rising, a man with the logical mind of a counting clerk might be the answer. Still it was this logical mind "For imposing taxes
on us without our
concent...." which was Grenville's undoing. As British historian Ian Christie notes, "all the various provisions of the years 1763 to 1765 made up a logical, interlocking system. Its one fatal flaw was that it lacked the essential basis of colonial consent."[10 ]
Three overriding colonial problems faced Grenville: a new governmental policy for the former French and Spanish North American territories; a means to defend these territories from the avowed intentions of the French and Spanish to reestablish control; and a means to pay the costs of imperial government and defense.
Western Lands and Defense
There was an immediate need for English government in the former English and French lands. In October 1763 the Board of Trade proposed, and the king in council established, a temporary program for western lands. Under the Proclamation of 1763 a governor-general would run Quebec (an attempt to get the French colonists to use an elected assembly failed), the French were confirmed in their land grants, and the Roman Catholic Church was retained. East and West Florida became separate colonies. In the disputed lands beyond the Appalachians into which English settlers had moved as soon as General Forbes occupied Fort Duquesne in 1758 and where the Indians under Chief Pontiac were in rebellion against these incursions, no English settlers were allowed until permanent treaties could be worked out with tribes owning the lands.
The Grenville ministry had several aims for its western lands policy. The Proclamation of 1763 would separate the Indians and whites while preventing costly frontier wars. Once contained east of the mountains, the colonials would redirect their natural expansionist tendencies southward into the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, and northward into Nova Scotia. Strong English colonies in former Spanish and French territories would be powerful deterrents to future colonial wars. There is no indication Grenville believed the Americans would be more easily governed if contained east of the mountains. His prime aim was orderly, controlled, peaceful, and inexpensive growth.