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Tag: Lord North

  • July 22, 1775: Lord North’s Motion

    Cover art for July 22, 1775: portrait of Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford by Nathaniel Dance, 1773.

    Lord North gets kind of a bad rap for being the Prime Minister who “lost the colonies.” But the fact is, he mostly understood their concerns and was sympathetic to them. However, Parliament was itching for a fight and not making life easy for anyone involved.

    Lord North put forth a proposal to the Colonies that, to be honest, didn’t offer a lot of change from the status quo. But once again, the slowness with which messages moved from one place in the world to another doomed its delivery to a date after the shooting started, and Congress deemed it as not worthy of serious consideration.

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  • May 30, 1775: Thomas Willing Gets Mail

    Cover art for May 30, 1775: Portrait of Thomas Willing by John Wollaston the Younger, 1750

    As we noted a couple of days ago, the Continental Congress had its share of delegates who wanted to take one more crack at reconciliation. To that end they’d begun working on the Olive Branch Petition, though it wouldn’t be ready to send to Britain for several more weeks.

    So when a letter came in from Lord North to one of the delegates, and the letter offered its own form of reconciliation…well, attention must be paid.

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  • March 30, 1775: King George III Restricts Trade

    Cover Art for March 30, 1775: Portrait of King George III, ca 1790,

    In the past we’ve talked about the New England Restraining Act; today was the day that King George III actually put it into action.

    To mark that day, Mike takes you through some of the details of the act and its impact on the trade in the Colonies, and the political impact in Britain.

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  • February 5, 1775

    Cover art for February 5, 1775: Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by David Martin

    As noted previously, the First Continental Congress composed a Petition to the King asking him for some relief from the Intolerable Acts. The petition arrived in London in mid-December, which turned out to be some bad timing for a number of reasons.

    Benjamin Franklin was in town for diplomatic purposes, and he composed a letter to Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Continental Congress, which summed up the problem: not only was the Petition but one among many, many other documents, it appeared that Parliament didn’t much care what the Colonies thought. And that’s the kind of thing that makes for bad relationships.

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