TRINITY: How 2 Alums Created the USA

Trinity College Dining Hall High Table, behind which is the portrait of
William Pitt the Elder (second from the right). Lord North is on a side
wall, where history would also put him. All photos by JT Marlin.

The following is edited from the article the originally appeared in The American Oxonian, 100:1 (Winter 2013), 37-40.

The portraits of two noted alumni of Trinity College, Oxford are on the walls of its Dining Hall.

• One made possible the American Revolution.
• The other made it inevitable.

The two men are judged very differently by history.

One resisted the Euro-centered vision of George II and created the British Empire through clever military strategy focused on the colonies. The other fed the petulance of George III and together they engineered the needless loss of what would be the most valuable part of the British Empire.

William Pitt the Elder

The first of these two noted Oxonians was William Pitt the Elder, the Great Commoner who late in life accepted a peerage and became the Earl of Chatham.

Pitt served as Whig Prime Minister, 1766-1768. He made possible the Revolution by sending the troops that drove the French out of North America and defeated the Indian tribes that were allied with the French.

So long as the French were in the colonies, the colonials had needed the British army for protection and revolution against the mother country was out of the question.

Closeup of William Pitt the Elder,
Lord Chatham. (Behind the
Trinity High Table.)

The great city of Pittsburgh, Penn., is named after Pitt (an Oxford twofer, since Pennsylvania is named after another Oxonian), and so is Pittsfield, Mass.

While a boy at Eton and a student at Trinity, William Pitt suffered from severe gout. Perhaps for that reason, in later years he did not look back with fondness on the time he spent at either Eton or Oxford.

Pitt was a passionate advocate for using expansion of British power in North America and India to balance retreat from costly wars in Europe during the period that was called the Seven Years War in Europe and was called the French and Indian War in the United States.

The British Army – following some early reverses – cleared out the French all the way up to Quebec, Pitt championed the cause of the colonies and sent over British forces despite George II’s wish that more of them be posted to protect his beloved Hanover.

The war in Europe went badly. George III sent his son the Duke of Cumberland to defend Hanover, but the duke - surrounded by the French at Hastenbeck in Germany - was forced to surrender Hanover to the French. Cumberland escaped with the help of Colonel Jeffrey Amherst, and on his return to Britain "resigned his military offices in disgrace". This story is told well in Walter Borneman's The French and Indian War (HarperCollins, 2006).

Pitt's campaign was immensely popular in the American colonies. But in a true Hegelian dialectic, the cost of the war created financial worries in Britain - and a consequent determination to make the colonies pay for the British troops stationed there - that hardened the attitude of the colonists to their mother country. Lord North became a passionate ally of George III in seeking to make the colonies recognize what they owed to their mother country - a debt both filial and financial.

Before the American Revolution, George III controlled virtually all of North America. After the Revolution, the British Crown retained only Canada as a colony, until Canada’s own independence was granted in spurts–and with a low profile–during the fitful 1919-1938 period.

Pitt was a fierce devotee of the colonies:

• He vigorously opposed the Stamp Act in 1766 ("The Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England.”). 
• He argued for removing British troops from Boston and deplored the punitive campaign of Lord North. 
• Not long before his death, Pitt said that the colonies had given the most brilliant proofs of their independent spirit. 

But even he believed the colonies should defer to the Mother Country.

One thing that the mother country did not fully appreciate is that the French and Indian War taught the colonial militias how to organize themselves for battle. Some colonial officers, like George Washington himself, played significant parts in the war. The outcomes of many of the battles in North America hinged on the strategic sense of commanders in coping with the transportation, weather and supply issues in the wilds of the upper Hudson. Sometimes small numbers of frontier-savvy colonial soldiers overcame larger forces of poorly led French troops.

Sometimes British settlers in the colonies returned home to Britain. But that was not the rule. British  colonizers brought their families with them and built permanent homes. They increased and multiplied. The French more often came as traders and returned home. The resulting imbalance of population favored the British in North America.

The upshot of the Seven Years War was that Europe remained not much different from when the war started. But the upshot of its synchronized French and Indian War in North America was vastly different. Britain not only became lord over all of North America, it became master of the oceans. The British Navy truly ruled the waves. The War created bases for the British – for example, in India – that became the cornerstones of the British Empire under Victoria. Pitt, not George II, understood what was going to be important in the decades ahead.

The British public, however, was not so happy about the colonies having a free ride on the military front. The Stamp Act sought to collect duties (in the form of stamps on bills of lading) on imported goods. The colonial leadership reacted by making imported goods unfashionable. Benjamin Franklin suggested that the colonials "wear their old clothes over again." Pitt in 1766 succeeded in having the law repealed.

Frederick Lord North

Frederick Lord North (Trinity, Oxford
Dining Room, back wall.)

The other alumnus was Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, who made the war of independence of the American colonies inevitable by trying to impose on the colonists the cost of the war and by making the payment of taxes a test of obedience to the Crown. He served as Tory Prime Minister, 1770-1782.

When the Quartering Act billeted British soldiers on the homes of American colonists and the New York legislature voted to nullify it, the British were "aghast". George III was "contemptuous" of the colonials. Pitt's chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townsend, seeing Pitt ailing, moved ahead to do the king's bidding and imposed new taxes on imports into the colonies of glass, lead, paints, paper and... tea. Also, George III claimed the Virginia Territory as his own, thereby alienating many Virginians who had bought land there–Virginians like future linchpins of the new country, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

The “Boston Massacre”, which started the bitterness in Boston, was hooliganism. Some soldiers served as strike-breakers. On March 5, 1770, a mob of several hundred youths and men attacked them and one soldier lost his nerve and fired at the mob. Three men lay dead and two were mortally wounded. Pitt, now Lord Chatham, said:

I love the Americans because they love liberty, and I love them for the noble efforts they made in the last war [The French and Indian War]. … I think the idea of drawing money from them by taxes was ill-judged. Trade is your object with them… But … they must be subordinate… They must obey and we prescribe. [Cited in Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (NY: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 200.] 

Lord North came in as Prime Minister in 1770, and for three years after the Boston Massacre, Britain traded peacefully with the colonies. There was a sense in Britain that their Seven Years War was expensive and they were looking for ways to off-load the costs of their military spending. Objectively, it might seem reasonable to ask the colonies to pay for their defense.

But  Sam Adams and other radical leaders looked at it a different way. Why should they be paying taxes to Britain if the colonies were not represented in the British Parliament? It was the Roundhead argument with the additional complaint of foreign taxation. Looking for ways to foment rebellion, they cleverly conceived of the public dumping of tea–the Boston Tea Party being the best-publicized example–to goad the bull-headed George III and his testy Prime Minister into overreaction (Morison, p. 204).

The Crown's response was exactly as the radicals wished - i.e., what were called the Coercive or Intolerable Acts. Pitt had recommended conciliation - withdrawing British troops from Boston (Morison, p. 209). But Lord North supported George III's animosity toward the rebels.

The Acts of course inflamed Bostonians by enacting reprisals for the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor.

But the Quebec Act of 1774 may have been the most disastrous for Britain. It undermined the numerous royalists in the colonies south of New England. The Quebec Act essentially took territory north of the Ohio River away from Virginia (mostly) and the other 13 colonies and annexed them to Quebec, which was seen as more loyal to the Crown.

George Washington and other leading Virginians had already begin staking claims to these lands as early as 1753. Although they were in 1763 nominally marked as an Indian reserve, Virginia and other colonies had their eye on them for purposes of westward expansion. George Washington, a surveyor by profession before he became a soldier, would have been deeply aware of, and involved in, investments predicated on the Virginian colonial government or other colonies, allocating the lands in the territories that the Crown essentially now claimed for itself. Whereas New Englanders were looking for a fight, the other colonies were not as belligerent, and were not fully committed to rebellion – until now, confronted with loss of their assets.

George III said smugly to Lord North on February 4, 1774:

The die is now cast. The Colonies must either submit or triumph.

This test was petulant and unnecessary. Britain could have made so much money off their 13 American colonies if George III had shown the strategic good sense that Edward had demonstrated by accommodating to Scotland less than a century before.

The mistakes of the mother country came to a head on April 18, 1775, when the two lanterns ("two if by sea") were hung in the steeple of Boston's Old North Church, signaling riders including Paul Revere to gallop to Lexington and Concord with the news: "The British are coming." The minute men readied themselves for the redcoats and the Revolutionary War was on.

Lord North's tenure as Prime Minister ended in 1782 and he died ten years later. Lord North gives his family name to Guilford, Conn. and that is about it (North Dakota and North Carolina are not named after him).

OXFORD: Alumni in the American Colonies (Chart)

Oxford Alumni Who Shaped the USA and Canada, 1585-1797
1. Oxonians made it both possible and inevitable for the American colonies to become independent.
2. All of the eight colonies between New York and Florida were founded or once owned in whole or part by an Oxonian. (Cambridge played a bigger role in New England.) 
  

Date	Oxford Alum	College	US Connection	State	Comment
1585	Sir Walter Raleigh	Oriel, Oxford – but didn’t take up residence	Explorer, founded Roanoke for the glory of the Queen	VA later was NC	In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh founded the first English colony at Roanoke in North America. He named the colony as Virginia after Queen Elizabeth I. However, the expedition being funded by himself, the Roanoke colony couldn't generate a stable revenue and was abandoned. The Carolina Province was later split off from Virginia and  its capital - Raleigh, NC - was named after Sir Walter. Read more at http://bit.ly/15B1UqE.
1567	Rev. Lawrence Washing-ton,  Fellow of Brasenose College Oxford (his two sons emigrated to Va.) was GW's gggfather.	Brasenose, Oxford (same college as current PM Cameron)	A Laurence Wasshington [sic] was registered at Oxford University in 1567 (at birth?).  Another Laurence Washington, likely his son, registered at Oxford University in 1594, from Northamptonshire. The Lawrences of Ashton Hall, Lancs., were intermarried with the de Lancasters and the Washingtons. (http://www.lawrencefamhis.com/ashton-o/p230.htm.)  George Washington (1732-99), first U.S. President (1789-1797), was born at Bridges Creek, Virginia. His great-grandfather John Washington and his brother Lawrence settled there in 1658 from Dillicar in Co. Westmorland. The background of the flag of Westmorland, just west of Durham County and Yorkshire, is the red-and-white stripes of the de Lancaster family, one form of whose crest has a single star in the canton.  The multiple Washington stars are a family addition.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tepper-marlin/washington-coat-of-arms_b_1906733.html http://nyctimetraveler.blogspot.com/2013/03/george-washington-ties-to-oxford.html Many believe the U.S. stars and stripes are derived at least indirectly from GW’s family coat of arms, which feature red (Gules) stars (Mullets) and stripes (Bars). (The District of Columbia flag is a direct copy of the Washington family red-and-white stars and stripes.) The Washington, Md., flag has blue stars.	USA, VA DC	GW’s earliest recorded ancestor was Patric FitzDolfin de Offerton, whose son William de Hertburn served the bishop of Durham, and who in 1185 was granted the manor of Washington in return for the service of attending the episcopal hunt with four greyhounds. The family lived on the estate for 400 years, but in 1613 it was sold back to the church. http://www.4crests.com/washington-coat-of-arms.html Ancestry of George Washington (the use of the de Lancaster stripes suggests the family is related) : #Patric FitzDolfin de Offerton, c. 1145-1182 #William FitzPatric de Hertburn, c. 1165-1194 #William de Washington, c. 1180-1239  #Walter de Washington, c. 1212-1264 #William de Washington, c. 1240-1288 #Robert de Washington, 1265-1324 #Robert de Washington, c. 1296-1348 #John de Washington, c. 1346-1408 #John de Washington, c. 1380-1423 #Robert Washington, 1404-1483 #Robert Washington, 1455-1528 #John Washington, 1478-1528 #Lawrence Washington, 1500-1583  #Robert Washington, c. 1544-1623  #Lawrence Washington, c. 1567-1616  #Rev. Lawrence Washington, 1602-1653 Brasenose College gggfather  #John Washington, c. 1631-1677 migrated to USA ggfather #Lawrence Washington, 1659-1698 gfather #Augustine Washington, 1694-1743 father #George Washington, 1732-1799, first President http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ancestry_of_George_Washington&action=edit&section=3
1732	James Oglethorpe	Corpus Christi, Oxford	Reformer, exposed terrible conditions in debtor prisons. Saw Georgia as haven for refugees from Britain’s prisons. In fact, the actual immigrants were skilled people.	GA	Landed 1732, settled near present Savannah, GA, in 1733. Negotiated with Indians for land, created forts. Georgia established as a buffer between Spanish Florida and South Carolina. Abolished slavery. Tolerant of all religions except Roman Catholicism. Named Governor of Georgia.
1776 (book)	Adam Smith	Balliol, Ox	Led opposition to tariffs on trade. The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776.	USA	Founder of free-trade classical economics, originator of the concept of the invisible hand operating in markets. Opposed mercantilist ideas in “The Wealth of Nations.”
1632	Calvert, 1st and 2nd Barons Baltimore and brother	Trinity, Ox	Founder. Roman Catholic, sought a place where Catholics could find refuge, bc they were not allowed to colonize Virginia, Georgia and other colonies. Pioneer in religious tolerance. 1st Baron Calvert got the land in Md. carved out of Virginia for Catholics. One son went to America and the other stayed behind to take the title and work in government. http://ox-cam-nyc.blogspot.com/2012/09/oxford-educated-calverts-settle-maryland.html	MD	George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore, secured rights to Maryland as a Catholic haven in the way of expansion of anti-Catholic Virginia. Cecilius Calvert continued this interest as 2nd Lord Baltimore and his brother became the first governor. They worked both sides of the Atlantic as Virginians tried to fight back against the loss of some of their land.
c. 1710	John 2nd Baron Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville	Christ Church, Oxford	Founder, Carolinas. Inherited from his ggfather Sir George Carteret one-eighth of Province of Carolina along the Virginia border. Unlike other owners, he refused to sell back to the Crown. Granville County named after him. Oxford, NC named for his alma mater (http://www1.oxfordnc.org/index.html). Was the real power in the government when Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington (Trinity, Oxford graduate) was Britain's 2nd PM, after Walpole, for two years.	NC, SC	Descendant was grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales. Jonathan Swift said of him: “He carried away [from Oxford] more Greek, Latin and Philosophy than properly became a person of his rank.” Migration tended to be southward, with Virginians coming down to the Carolina for cheaper land. South Carolina split away (as Delaware did from Pennsylvania) in 1719-1729.
1758	William Pitt the Elder (1st Earl of Chatham)	Trinity, Ox	Kicked Out French + Allied Indians. http://ox-cam-nyc.blogspot.com/2013/03/bornemans-french-and-indian-war-shows.html	USA	Pitt had the imperial vision that supported British soldiers going to the colonies and chasing French forces to Canada (and eventually out of North America). http://ox-cam-nyc.blogspot.com/2012/09/oxford-in-usa-2-making-independence.html
1773	Frederick Lord North	Trinity, Oxford	Overtaxed the colonies to pay for Pitt’s wars. http://ox-cam-nyc.blogspot.com/2012/09/oxford-in-america-3-making-independence.html	USA	Pitt was greatly opposed to making the colonies pay.
1620	Oxford Pilgrims	Oxford	Colonist	MA	Various pilgrims landing at Plymouth etc. attended Oxford
1681	William Penn	Christ Church, Oxford	Founded Pennsylvania as an extension of New Jersey, which had been purchased as a Quaker haven. Like the Calverts, he was a pioneer of religious tolerance. Founded Philadelphia, whose charter became a basis of the U.S. Constitution. Became close to the founder of the Quakers, George Fox. Persecuted for his views, a jury’s refusal to convict him resulted in a breakthrough in the law of jury nullification.	PA, DE, NJ	Son of a supporter of the King of England, who was knighted and made an admiral, Penn – although he broke with his father on religious and peace issues - was given the land that is now known as Pennsylvania and Delaware as settlement of a debt owed by King Charles. A visionary, he created a colony committed to peace and envisioned a union of all the colonies, as well as a similar union in Europe. Charles II named Pennsylvania after William Penn’s father. Delaware split off bc the leaders of this area did not like being under a Quaker government.
Date	Cambridge	College	US Connection	State	Comment
1636	John Harvard	Emma-nuel, Cam- bridge	Colonist	MA	Donated his library to Harvard, thereby gave the College his name. Among the influential colonists were a number of Cambridge (hence Harvard's city name)  graduates. http://bit.ly/14bpApf

BORNEMAN: How War Shaped North America

Borneman's "The French and
Indian War" shows Pitt's
brilliance and success in
pushing out French forces.

Walter Borneman's The French and Indian War (HarperCollins, 2006) shows how the British drove the French out of North America - and, eventually, the Spanish and the Native Americans whom they called Indians.

This was the first step in the creation of the United States as we know it. Without the British Army to clear out the French, the French language would today be more commonly spoken on the upper Hudson, and possibly all the way down to New York City.

William Pitt the Elder (the "Great Commoner" as he was called with veneration most of his life, but then later with disappointment when he became Earl of Chatham) championed the cause of the colonies and sent over British forces despite a need for them in Europe.

Pitt's campaign was immensely popular in the American colonies. But in a true Hegelian dialectic, the cost of the war created animosities that hardened the attitude of the colonists to their mother country.

King George III before the American Revolution controlled virtually of North America. (In time the British Crown kept all of Canada as a colony until the country's independence was asserted with irregularity and a low profile, during the 1919-1938 period).

Just as one Oxford graduate, Pitt the Elder, created the policies as Prime Minister that chased the French out of the colonies and made possible their independence, Frederick North (2nd earl of Guilford) made this independence inevitable by trying to impose on the colonists the cost of the war.

These two Oxonians have their names attached to many places in the United States, even though neither one ever set foot on the American Continent. Pittsburgh, Penn., for example, and Pittsfield, Mass. In the case of Lord North, there is Guilford, Conn. and North Dakota (just kidding about North Dakota).

Both Pitt and North attended Trinity College, Oxford. Pitt had gout as an undergraduate (as he had at Eton) and did not remember his time at Oxford with nostalgia, any more than his time at Eton. Pitt and North are judged very differently by history, the first as an empire-builder and the second as the source of the loss of a large part of the empire.. Pitt was a passionate strategist for the successful creation of the British Empire during the period that was called the Seven Years War in Europe. Later, Lord North was a passionate ally of George III in trying to put the American colonies in their place and make them pay their fair share of the burdens of war - his determination to distribute the burden played a great part in precipitating the American Revolution,

The eventual outcome of the independence of the colonies might not have bothered Pitt himself. He was a fierce devotee of the colonies and vigorously opposed the Stamp Act in 1766 ("The Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England.). He argued for removing British troops from Boston and deplored the punitive campaign of Lord North.

Not long before his death, Pitt said that the colonies had given the most brilliant proofs of their independent spirit. (Borneman, p. 305, referencing comment in J. C. Long's 1940 book on Pitt.)

Borneman lives in Colorado. He has previously written about the War of 1812. He shows that George II was wrapped up in keeping his "prized possession," Hanover. The king sent his "most treasured son", the duke of Cumberland, to defend Hanover, but the duke was surrounded by the French at Hastenbeck in Germany, and was forced to surrender Hanover to the French. Cumberland escaped with the help of Colonel Jeffrey Amherst, and on his return to Britain "resigned his military offices in disgrace".

The b ook includes highly readable summaries of the different battles in North American, showing how the outcome of these battles hinged on the strategic sense of commanders, and the importance of sometimes small numbers of savvy soldiers. He portrays Pontiac as an able military commander but questions how important he was as a leader of the Iroquois or other tribes. At numerous points he suggests that the early allegiance of different tribes to the British was based on lavish gifts, and to the French was based on the comfortable laissez-faire relationship that the French had with their Indian allies.

What the British had going for them is that they brought their women with them and built families. They increased and multiplied. The French came as traders and went home. The imbalance of population meant that the British were favored in the contest between British and French.

In the end, the French and Indian wars - the Seven Years War - left Europe pretty much the way it started. But it made Britain lord of North America, established the British Navy as preeminent, and created bases for the British - for example, in India - that became the cornerstones of the British Empire. Pitt, and not George II, understood what was going to be important in the decades ahead.

The British public was behind making the colonies pay for their own defense.  The Stamp Act imposed duties on imported goods. To which Benjamin Franklin suggested that the new fashion in the colonies would be "to wear their old clothes over again." Pitt in 1766 succeeded in having it repealed. The Quartering Act billeted British soldiers on the homes of American colonists and the New York legislature voted to nullify it. The British were "aghast".

George III was "contemptuous" of the colonials. Pitt's chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townsend, seeing Pitt ailing, moved ahead to do the king's bidding and imposed new taxes on imports into the colonies of glass, lead, paints, paper and... tea.

The last straw were the "Intolerable Acts", of which the Quebec Act of 1774 appears to Borneman as the most significant. It granted territory north of the Ohio river to the British colony at Quebec. George Washington had claimed these lands for Virginia in 1753 and in 1763 they were nominally marked as an Indian reserve, while several states had their eye on them for purposes of westward expansion.  The Acts also enacted reprisals for the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor.

Which led to the moment on April 18, 1775, when two lanterns were hung ("one if by land, two if by sea") in the steeple of Boston's Old North Church, sending the signal that the Revolutionary War was on.

Two Oxonians Created the USA, Pitt and North (Superseded)

Borneman's "The French and Indian
War" places it in the context of the
struggles for power in Europe.

The content of the following book review has been abbreviated and utilized in the following post:

http://ox-cam-nyc.blogspot.com/2013/10/oxonians-at-odds-pitt-north-and.html

For the writer's purposes the post has been superseded, but the original review is being retained for those who have linked to it or who are interested in knowing more about the French and Indian War or Borneman's book on the subject.

***

During the past two weeks in the Florida sun, I found a book to read that I recommend highly to anyone interested in the origins of the British Empire and the United States of America.

Walter Borneman's 2006 book, published by HarperCollins, shows how the British managed to drive the French out of North America - and along with them, eventually, the Spanish and the Native Americans whom they called Indians - and yet created animosities that led to the booting of the Brits from 13 of the colonies. (King George III kept control of Quebec.)

Two Oxonians, William Pitt the Elder (the "Great Commoner" who later became earl of Chatham) and Frederick North (2nd earl of Guilford), have their names attached to many places in the United States, even though neither one set foot on the American Continent.

Pittsburgh, Penn., for example, and Pittsfield, Mass., and Guilford, Conn. And North Dakota (just kidding).

Both Pitt and North attended Trinity College, Oxford but they are judged very differently by history. Pitt was a passionate strategist for the successful creation of the British Empire during the Seven Years War in Europe. North was a passionate ally of George III in trying to put the American colonies in their place.

Pitt made possible the independence of the American colonies. So long as the French were a threat, the colonies were dependent on the British military to defend them.

The outcome of independence would not have bothered Pitt himself. He was a fierce devotee of the colonies and vigorously opposed the Stamp Act in 1766 ("The Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England.), argued for removing British troops from Boston and deplored the attitude toward the colonies of Lord North. Pitt wished not long before his death that he were ten years younger so that he could

spend the remainder of my days in America, which has already given the most brilliant proofs of its independent spirit. (Borneman, p. 305, citing J. C. Long's 1940 book on Pitt.)

Borneman, who lives in Colorado, has previously written about the War of 1812. He shows that George II was wrapped up in keeping his "prized possession," Hanover. The king sent his "most treasured son", the duke of Cumberland, to defend Hanover, but the duke was surrounded by the French at Hastenbeck in Germany, and was forced to surrender Hanover to the French. Cumberland escaped with the help of Colonel Jeffrey Amherst, and on his return to Britain "resigned his military offices in disgrace".

Borneman provides highly readable summaries of the different battles in North American, showing how the outcome of these battles hinged on the strategic sense of commanders, and the importance of sometimes small numbers of savvy soldiers. He portrays Pontiac as an able military commander but questions how important he was as a leader of the Iroquois or other tribes. At numerous points he suggests that the early allegiance of different tribes to the British was based on lavish gifts, and to the French was based on the comfortable laissez-faire relationship that the French had with their Indian allies.

What the British had going for them is that they brought their women with them and built families. They increased and multiplied. The French came as traders and went home. The imbalance of population meant that the British were favored in the contest between British and French.

In the end, the French and Indian wars - the Seven Years War - left Europe pretty much the way it started. But it made Britain lord of North America, established the British Navy as preeminent, and created bases for the British - for example, in India - that became the cornerstones of the British Empire. Pitt, and not George II, understood what was going to be important in the decades ahead.

The problem for the British after the dust settled is that the wars were costly and had to paid for and, many thought, why not make the colonies pay for their own defense?  The Stamp Act imposed duties on imported goods. To which Benjamin Franklin suggested that the new fashion would be "to wear their old clothes over again." Pitt in 1766 succeeded in having it repealed. The Quartering Act billeted British soldiers on the homes of American colonists and the New York legislature voted to nullify it. The British were "aghast".

George III was "contemptuous" of the colonials. Pitt's chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townsend, seeing Pitt ailing, moved ahead to do the king's bidding and imposed new taxes on imports into the colonies of glass, lead, paints, paper and... tea.

The last straw were the "Intolerable Acts", of which the Quebec Act of 1774 appears to Borneman as the most significant. It granted territory north of the Ohio river to the British colony at Quebec. George Washington had claimed these lands for Virginia in 1753 and in 1763 they were nominally marked as an Indian reserve, while several states had their eye on them for purposes of westward expansion.  The Acts also enacted reprisals for the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor.

All this came to a head on April 18, in 1775, when two lanterns were hung in the steeple of Boston's old North Church and their beams sent messengers riding toward Lexington and Concord.

This is a fascinating book and its 400 pages read like a thriller.