The American war of independence (1775_1783)

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The American War of Independence (1775-1783) Despite the money flowing in from India, Britain nevertheless struggled with the huge war bills that came about as a result of the Seven Years War and the defence of its colonies in America became a burden. The British government sought various ways of getting the colonies to contribute to their own defence, from taxing sugar to requiring all legal documents to be stamped for a price, but it was forced to repeal several of these acts as the American colonies rejected taxes from a government in which they had no representation.

Ironically, it was the repeal of a tax, not its imposition, that caused the greatest conflagration. The EIC owed the British government taxes, but smugglers competing with the EIC to import tea into America caused the sales of tea sold through the proper channels to decrease. If the EIC were able to export tea direct to America, thereby avoiding the taxes it was paying in London, its price would diminish and sales of tea by the EIC would increase, subsequently decreasing the time it took for the EIC to pay its back taxes.

. Concerned with how this would affect their business, the smugglers, with the popular participation of those opposed to British rule, dumped 340 chests of EIC tea into Boston Harbour in December 1773 as a sign of protest. The 'Boston Tea Party, as it became known, engendered a vigorous response from London, including the closing of the harbour and the dispatch of British troops to impose order and enforce obedience to parliament -a highly significant act for a population used to relying on the army for its defence.

In April 1775 the British army went to seize a cache of arms in Concorde, a small town near Boston, on the north-east coast of America. Shots were fired and the American Revolution began. Nobody had any idea that it would take eight years of

brutal battle before Britain would recognise the independence that the American colonists declared on 4th July 1776.

The war lasted so long because neither side was willing to submit. In the end the British were defeated by a mixture of a 3,000 mile-long supply line, terrible winters to which they were unaccustomed, and sheer bad luck. The Americans had been fortunate to have the brilliant leadership of George Washington, who went on to become the first president of the United States of America in 1789. To make matters worse, the French, the Spanish and the Dutch all declared war on Britain. Little did the British know that they would not see peace until 1815; little did the French know that their aid to a people at war with its monarchy would come back to bite them.

In the 1783 peace settlement that officially ended the war, the Americans received all the land between Canada and Florida east of the Mississippi. It is worth noting that while American territory doubled (and would double again when the Americans bought Louisiana from the French in 1803), at that point Spain still owned a larger territory in the Americas than the Americans themselves did.