As most students know, the “Boston Tea Party,” which occurred this week (Dec. 16) in 1773, was a direct response to the Tea Act that the British Parliament had passed earlier that year.   But it was also in response to the series of revenue acts — Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts — that Britain had imposed on its American colonies since the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, a war that had cost Britain dearly. Indeed, Britain had imposed the revenue acts to help pay for that war.

That said, the Tea Act was different because its chief purpose was not to gain revenue, but to rescue the British East India Company from bankruptcy.  Parliament worried that if the East India Company failed, it might drag down the entire British economy, but many members of Parliament wanted to prevent the company’s bankruptcy also because they had personal fortunes invested in it.

Thus did the Tea Act expand the East India Company’s monopoly on selling tea to the British colonies — and at a very cheap price because the company had tons of tea sitting in its warehouses that it needed to sell.  In fact, the price was so cheap that even though Parliament imposed a small tax on the tea, it still undercut the price the American colonies currently were paying for tea, including smuggled tea, which made up the bulk of the tea they consumed.  What’s more, the East India tea was of higher quality than the smuggled tea.

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What became known as the Jay Treaty — after its chief American negotiator, John Jay — was signed by President Washington this week (Nov. 19) in 1794.  Perhaps no treaty in American history was as unpopular with Americans as it was beneficial to Americans.  Its passage is testament to the leadership and statesmanship of our first president.

To set the stage, although it had lost the American Revolution, in 1794 Britain still had a military presence in America, which, unsurprisingly, angered Americans since it violated the terms of the treaty that ended the revolutionary war.  Yet the British countered that pre-revolutionary war debts owed to British merchants by the colonists had not been paid, which also violated that treaty.

The larger problem, however, was that Britain and France were again at war, and the British Navy was either preventing American merchant ships from trading with France, or impounding the cargoes of American ships that made the attempt.  Americans — who still remembered who fought with them in the American Revolution and who fought against them — wanted war with Britain.

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He is (after Elvis) the most famous king in American history.  Dubbed “the king who lost America,” King George III officially began his rule this week (Oct. 25) in 1760, succeeding his grandfather, George II, to the British throne.

Most history books portray him as stubborn, simple and dimwitted. Stubborn he was, and as we shall see, that stubbornness helped cost him his American colonies. As for simple, it was true he was a man of simple tastes, but given that British society at the time was so slavish to fashion that it approached caricature, his refusal to get caught up in “appearances” — he stubbornly resisted wearing a wig — seems in hindsight admirable. He was also, the later unflattering portraits notwithstanding, rather tall for his day and this side of handsome.

But dimwitted he was not — he was actually a quick learner.  Like much of royalty he was a patron of the arts, but unlike many monarchs he had an eye for quality. His favorite musical composers were Bach and Handel (although he predicted great things for the young lad Mozart), and he built an art collection that rivaled any in the world. He was also an avid reader, with a library that also was among the worlds finest.  And he was a talented artist; he could have been an architect, and he was adept at both the piano and violin.

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