The podcast delves into a pivotal moment in American history, focusing on the dramatic shift in public sentiment towards King George III. The narrative begins with the destruction of a statue of the king in Bowling Green Park, which was once revered and celebrated. This drastic transformation in perception is explored through the lens of propaganda and political rhetoric that characterized the revolutionary period. The discussion traces the evolution of public opinion from gratitude towards a monarch who repealed the Stamp Act to vilification as a tyrant responsible for colonial oppression. The episode emphasizes that the narrative constructed around King George III continues to influence historical teachings and cultural representations today, prompting listeners to question the accuracy of such portrayals and the complexities of historical figures. Ultimately, the episode serves as an invitation to reassess the legacy of King George III beyond the simplistic caricature often presented in popular discourse, advocating for a nuanced understanding of historical narratives and their implications on contemporary perspectives.

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A crowd gathers around a gilded statue in Bowling Green Park.

King George III on horseback, dressed as a Roman emperor.

£4,000 of lead covered in gold leaf.

And they throw ropes around its neck, pull it down, hack it apart, and then melt it into 42,088 musket balls.

Here's the thing, though.

That same statue four years earlier had been dedicated with a ceremony called Colonial Governors, assemblies, clergy, all in attendance, thanking King George for supporting the repeal of the Stamp act, celebrating their benevolent king four years.

From gratitude to ammunition.

So what changed?

The man?

Or just the story about him?

Because the propaganda worked.

It worked so well that 250 years later, we're still teaching the cartoonish version of King George iii, the tyrant.

Oh, the villain who lost America through incompetence and cruelty.

But what if that story is wrong?

What if the real King George III was buried under centuries of revolutionary rhetoric that we never really bothered to question?

What happens when you actually look at what he did versus, you know, what famous words Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson used?

Today, we're going to look at a second part of King George III out of three and dive into the seven Years one Years War and the few things that led to a little thing that we know as the American Revolution.

On another episode of the Remedial Scholar.

That's ancient history.

I feel I was denied critical need to know information.

Belongs in museum.

Stop skipping your remedial class.

Welcome back, Feather.

Welcome back, fellow scholars.

I am Levi, and this is the Remedial Scholar.

This is part two, as I mentioned, of three King George iii, King of England and of America before the Revolution.

He was King of England after the Revolution too.

I guess.

Going to be talking about the truth, the lies, and everything in between.

As I mentioned last episode, there's about 250 years worth of propaganda on this side of the pond to go through.

So there's a lot of things to go over and correct some of the things that we have gotten wrong.

You know, mistruths that just compound over time.

But before we get to that, I have a couple housekeeping things.

First and foremost, thank you to the people who have given us reviews on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

Super helpful.

If you're new here and this is your first episode, I would start with the one before this just for continuity sake, but also don't feel the need to review it is part of the reason why you might have popped in here.

And that's great, but I would like for you to listen to a few episodes before you decide to bless us with any kind of reviews.

So anyway, secondly, there's a new website to check out theremedial scholar.com and then add a slash merch there for some new merch designs.

I'm wearing this.

If you're watching the YouTube video, I got this monogram hoodie with.

It's got the.

The new Victorian style logo on the back.

So pretty sweet.

I really like it.

I really like the fit of this one.

It's not like an oversized.

It's.

It's a nice true to size and also the materials really, you know, high quality.

You can tell it's really high quality.

The print's nice.

So check it out.

It's different than the previous merch service that I used.

This is all really nice stuff.

And from what I can tell, ships from within the United States on most things.

There's a couple random shirt blends that ship from the uk, but for the most part, I ordered this and it was within a week that I got it.

So if you are a returning listener and you want to help support the show, check that out.

For any of my fellow veteran or military scholars, there's some merch that features the trailing flag on the sleeve.

If you want to support it and try and wear it under your uniform.

I believe I got the colors as close as I could to, you know, the under undershirt colors.

But if not, you can always wear it out of uniform and support me either way.

Or if you just want to look cool and let everybody know that you support the troops, check it out.

One of the new designs I worked on for this kind of, not this exact episode, but like this time period is the square dance design, which is super fun.

It features a square formation from like a top view.

And the square formation is a musket formation that they did back in the day to prevent cavalry charges.

So it says, it has a picture of that and there's little sticks with little bayonets affixed to it.

Super simple looking.

But then it says dance underneath and there's a musket like militia guy in the A.

And it's super fun.

So if you want to check that out, check it out.

If not, hey, no pressure.

Just listen to the show, share it with wherever, and that's it for me.

Begging for stuff.

Let's get back to King George.

We left off at the end of the Seven Years War and there's a few cracks beginning to show in the once solid seeming empire, which is odd because there's a bunch of New land and subordinates under the banner of the Crown.

And if you haven't listened to the last episode, that's bold to jump into this one right away.

Summarizing it though, we have discussed the empire up to the Hanoverian dynasty coming to power, including the revamped economic situation with the national debt being retooled to be more like a modern system where big money people loan the government money with zero of it being paid back, but instead the interest is collected in perpetuity.

So this allowed the Crown to outspend their competition, who still relied on loans directly to the King or Queen from artisans and drastically increased taxes as well, which angered everybody.

Then the birth of George is childhood accession and the first few years of his reign, including the Seven Years War and the ending of it, with Britain gaining a big chunk of real estate to add to their colonial collection.

Okay, all caught up.

Back to the topic at hand.

Let's get into it.

Following the Seven Years War, things in New Britain, British colonies, didn't, you know, smooth over right away.

Shortly after we have the outbreak of Pontiac's War.

Reasonable mid, mid sized sedans.

So stupid it's an unplanned joke.

In case you couldn't tell, this was a confederation of Native Americans who began to combat the new British rule after the French had been pushed out of the Great Lakes region.

And colonists such as John Adams felt that it was something to justify more British officers in the colonies and give them money to just sit around while colonists were taxed because there's nothing more British generals love than being a completely different country for no reason.

That is kind of a joke on colonization, but also like at face value, it doesn't seem like that's something that they would want to do now.

The proclamation, the Royal Proclamation was not a taxation move.

It is more of a formal ratification of the Treaty of Paris to end.

The mental mentality of George was that the colonies needed some level of protection despite a formal war being resolved and over with.

With the war being over, there is now the economic question to answer to, which is exactly the kind of thing that would make the relationship of the colonies and Britain a little rocky.

Following the treaty, there were some parliamentary changes afoot as well.

Lord Bute, George's personal tutor, longtime friend, had resigned from his position of Prime Minister.

I assume that he was worn out by his constant barrage of filth being thrown at his carriage as he rode through London, George appointed another George to replace Bute, George Grenville.

George actually did not like Grenville, King George that is, but he was very good administrator.

So that might have been one of the reasons why he was picked.

Some historians have said that the reason that the King did not like Grenville was because of how he spoke to the King, which was in a very condescending manner.

Now remember, King's not super old at this point is specifically said that he treated the King like a schoolboy who had failed to do his homework, which you know, the 25 year old did not enjoy.

Around this same time frame, King George was now the subject of various political attacks like that of one John Wilkes.

And if you're curious, yes, he is related, albeit distantly, to John Wilkes Booth, but is also the namesake of that man.

He is an English radical.

And Wilkes had published what is called the North Britain, which is like a newsletter newspaper thing.

In this specific version number 45, which had levied a few different accusations at the King.

And that George was using his position to make himself a and his friends way more wealthy.

And one specific line says, now I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to see the honor of the Crown maintained in a manner truly becoming of royalty.

I lament to see it sunk even to prostitution.

This is pretty crazy.

He also levied some attacks at members of Parliament who were actually responsible for writing what the King gave in his speech on the treaty, stating the most abandoned instant of ministerial effort ever attempted to be imposed on mankind.

Yeah, yeah, I worked on my British accent since last episode.

Suffice to say that Wils was not pumped about it.

He would ultimately be arrested for his publications with number 45 being the most recent in a long line of slanderous issues.

He was arrested on a general warrant which was like is granted without specifics, like names or whatever, anybody like with real evidence essentially.

And this had happened on occasion, used by William Pitt three times before.

But when Wilkes was arrested it kind of stirred a commotion.

George had issued the warrant and it was the arrest of not only Wilkes, but publishers as well.

49 total arrested, causing a fair amount of anger towards the King and really cementing that Wilkes was saying was true.

But it, you know, it looked perception wise.

You know, it's going to Hinder things.

He was released by way of parliamentary.

Parliamentary, privy, parliamentary privilege.

Since he was a member of the House of Lords, he then sued, winning a thousand pounds.

The real interesting thing here is that Wilkes really thought this was going to catapult him into, like, a major life of politics, since he was on the outside of it up to this point.

After he was freed, he positioned himself against Butte's replacement, Grenville.

Grenville was actually the brother of Richard Grenville Temple, who Wilkes was sort of a protege of.

So that's kind of interesting.

Temple belonged to the same circles as William Pitt, who was loved by pretty much everybody, and they were all pretty staunch Whigs.

So with Pitt opposing the peace treaty, Wilkes found himself opposing it too.

After this all happened, Prime Minister Grenville asked his brother to dismiss Wilkes from his militia, which he did.

Wilkes was then accused of fraud, and he had then taken off to France.

When arrested, Wilkes a poem titled An Essay on Women, which is a pornographic parody to Alexander's Pope.

Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man, was found in his house.

So then you know, this is extremely obscene for the time and possession of such, much less authoring, would be a criminal act.

So his major enemy, John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich.

That's right, Sandwich found and used this information and shared it with the House Lords and was tried and found guilty in absentia or absentia of obscene libel and seditious libel.

And so he was found guilty without actually being there because he was in France.

And then he made zero friends in France.

And when creditors began to close in on him, he had to return and face the consequences, submit to the sentencing.

He received two years of fined £1,000.

But his popularity continued to carry him and cause a lot of friction in Britain.

So while he was never really like, like he was punished, but like he suited and got £1,000 and then he was charged £1,000, you know, kind of a wash.

He did go to prison for two years, but, you know, his.

His popularity never waned because of this.

But all of these events really put a target on King George, not just in terms of actions like issuing the general warrant, but because the accusations Wilkes made set the stage for people to view the King as the source for all of their problems.

It turned the constitutional monarch into.

Into a tyrannical villain for following guidance and supporting the politicians in which the power truly lied.

This resolution was to balance the cost of deploying troops in America.

Certain duties needed to be collected, duties meaning taxes.

The Sugar act was then drawn up and applied.

Now the Sugar act is seen by many Americans as like the second straw towards revolution.

Following the placement of troops in America in response to Pontiac's War, with it being such a prominent part of this, you would think that it was, you know, a very aggressive overreach by the government.

The Sugar act actually reduced the duty on foreign molasses by half.

But the kicker was there was now actually going to be enforced and this was not a good thing for rum distillers in the colonies.

This was a 3 pence per gallon tax which was paid mostly by rum distillers in New England who relied on molasses from French Caribbean to make their product.

This was strictly a way to generate money from America by way of either adding costs to molasses from somewhere else or raising sales in molasses made in British territories.

So it wasn't long before people in the colonies now began to make some noise about these new regulations.

The old way was to bribe various customs officials or smuggle the goods in another way.

The new enforced regulation meant that the Royal Navy was authorized to seize the smugglers and new courts were established in Halifax specifically to put violations or violators on trial.

Custom officials had more expansive search authority.

Anyone who chose to be an informant on smuggling operations was given a cut of the seized goods.

And the biggest part was that the burden of proof now belonged to the smugglers instead of the officials.

The act itself worded in a way that leaves a little doubt to the purpose of it.

The preamble states that the act was, quote, for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting and securing said colonies.

This is the language that people were scared of, particularly money making people.

The cost of general goods fluctuated at a normal pace.

So your typical colonists wouldn't really feel it as much as the merchants who dealt with it.

With the goods being taxed, argument also becomes something to the effect of, well, if you're going to start charging us for protecting us, why did we have militias help you?

And the American colonists did have militias and they did help the British during the Seven Years War.

But as soon as the war was over, they basically disbanded and returned to whatever life they had, because they're a militia, not a formal military soldier or whatever.

Colonists also felt that there was no real threat to come since the war had ended and that they could handle any Native American threat.

That did linger then the argument is that the taxation came without the representation.

Right.

Since the colonies were being taxed for protection of the British, they should have a seat at the table of politics.

That's the whole thing, right?

You ask anybody about the Revolutionary War, ultimately the phrase taxation without representation will come up.

Now the real fact is that the colonists did not really want to be represented.

It might sound a little controversial, but I think that the colonists were pretty happy in this ambiguity that they profited from up to this point.

They had, you know, they had taxes, sure, but the big ones were not really enforced.

Right.

This gave them a sense of autonomy.

They had local taxes which they paid.

But despite a massive influx of British military to defend them during the French and Indian War, there was colonial superiority complex going on that seemed to be fueled by the fact that they had militiamen fighting in the war.

And their arguments against any taxes in repaying British military benefit, right.

Was that their troops paid in blood, so they didn't need to pay more in taxes to balance the budget of the inflated military in their eyes, forgetting that the fact that British also didn't send over like super soldiers that never died.

So despite the recurring theme, repeated line taxation without representation, it's not really true, not completely anyway.

The argument is that colonists wanted a fair say in all the things going on and that would affect their day to day lives.

And that's totally fair.

They didn't want to be burdened by the taxes placed on them without being able to make a play in part of the decision making rights that would govern their lives.

Now with the sugar tax and even the stamp tax later on, they were still taxed at a fraction of what the average British citizen paid.

But there was a comfortability in the status quo.

They hadn't really been taxed properly because it was not really collected properly.

They got to enjoy the creature comforts of being a protectorate of Britain and the realistic and realistically had very little in the realms of responsibilities.

They had their colonial assemblies which regulated local laws.

They were able to address major grievances with their appointed governors who were, you know, the British lords and even get them dismissed if they neglected their responsibilities too much.

Colonists also argued that their rights as Englishmen should protect them from being taxed without their consent.

This circles back to the fact that they did not or had no plans to elect anyone into parliament to represent them.

In my research I found that a big reason they didn't, aside from Logistically, didn't really have Zoom back then.

Couldn't do it.

Super easy.

A trip to England, not exactly a quick one at the time, but also they would be outvoted on almost every issue.

You know, while the colonies had around 2 million people at the time, England had close to 8 million.

So representation in Parliament would be an overwhelming amount of majority for British MPs.

And the other half of this is that they had, they decided to be represented to have members in Parliament.

This is essentially a grant of total authority by Parliament instead of just a general big picture version that they had at the moment.

Right.

You put in people to be represented.

Well now you're represented and now you kind of have to do the thing right.

You don't get this wishy washy the rules sometimes apply to us anymore.

You're part of the system.

Is also worth pointing out that the colonists held a greater percentage of voting bodies than their British counterparts.

The requirements were to be a landowning white man and that only constituted around 15% of the Brits, whereas 50 to 75% of eligible colonists had the ability to vote.

And this was a huge contrast in my opinion.

It really made sense why they didn't want to be represented at all.

This meant that in local issues the colonists actually got their way in a democratic manner more than the British people did in the, you know, back in Britain they had swayed local trade regulations, petitioned large Board of Trade concerns, forwarded by government governors and adjusted adjustments were made.

They were able to organize complaints to remove governors, as I mentioned.

So with the Sugar act and later Stamp act, they did have the ability to have their concerns heard.

Ultimately both of them would be repealed.

But anyway, back to the king.

With the Sugar act implemented, the general consensus in the colonies was the correct one.

Parliament was to blame for this.

The question did remain how the budget was going to be addressed at all.

In all of George's studies he did focus himself on economics quite a bit.

He had written in his lifetime around 560 pages on the subject and was adamant on a course of action that would balance out the massive debt increase from the Seven Years War.

Now we talked about the way the new debt system worked already, so I'm not going to go back into that.

Just know that the government was beholden to the creditors to pay back interest and the ways to do so was by increasing revenue, specifically tax revenue.

The ways to do that were by increasing taxes, hoping a bunch of goods become really popular and making revenue from the sales or putting taxes on the things that Typically didn't have them.

And this is where the Stamp act comes into play.

This require all official legal documentation to have a certified stamp which authorized the business they were doing.

Essentially a seal of approval on documented materials.

It's as if you had a constant like everything's notarized, right?

And this was on documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, even dice.

It was announced ahead of time when the Sugar act was passed that Parliament would consider a stamp tax as well.

It was opposed pretty much right away in the colonies, but many in Parliament and even American ambassadors in England, like one Benjamin Franklin, underestimated the amount of resistance this would have.

Grenville was the prime minister still and it was his idea to institute this as it had been successful in Britain many times before.

It was an easy way to collect tax money without making it.

So you had to finance ways to collect it.

You didn't have to pay the guy to go out and investigate and collect the taxes.

It's literally an excise tax on paper goods.

Now this may seem foreign to our modern ways of life where nearly everything has a tax associated with it, but back then, sure there were things that were taxed, but it was not common for it to be so widespread and applied in a general sweeping manner here and there.

Stamp taxes worked in Britain before because, well, people had generally no issue with it as it was still cheaper than the broad tax hikes of before.

Even more so.

Stamp taxes mainly affected people paying for the things that were being used, right, the documents.

This means, you know, businesses who use a lot of paper, lawyers, bankers, printing presses, those kinds of people are the ones who are fronting this and they're the ones that were most affected by it.

As you can imagine.

People who manage the flow of news, who hold the money and who interact with the government on paper based basis constantly.

We're not exactly the most subservient of taxed populations in the colonies, especially merchants, traders, even tavern keepers could also be affected by this as the tax spread beyond just the typical paper playing cards.

I mentioned dice, I mentioned any deeds, mortgages, land grants, shipping documents, manifests, custom forms, contracts, you know, those kinds of things.

The unaffected were the general laborers, farmers and the like who had no real use of papers in this way, you know, the vast majority of people.

But still it became a problem, didn't go over well and it wasn't like rioting right away.

It was larger complaints in the typical channels.

Many wrote letters of protest, which is kind of funny.

I don't like paying extra money for these papers.

I'm going to write you a letter.

Some lawyers straight up just stopped practicing law to boycott using the stamp papers.

The printers of colonies, one like Benjamin Franklin ran had a choice.

Pass the money on to the customer or just stop publish at all.

Third option was used specifically by Franklin where they would just keep doing things and not use the stamp paper at all.

And that's going to be important in a little bit.

Now where did the King stand on the issue?

Well, he was really pretty hands off the whole thing at first.

He had no real issue with it as constituents held similar thoughts en masse.

It was something that had worked before.

Uncontroversial.

The common Brit had been subjected to it many times.

Even in his letters to the prime minister at the time, Grenville, he had no conversation about the Stamp act, like really at all.

Everyone inside Parliament and I would imagine most of Britain would argue that a simple stamp tax to pay for the troops that continue to defend the colony and assets is not that crazy of a thought.

Especially given the nature that the average colonist held more land, more wealth than the average Brit and yet were taxed at a much slimmer percentage.

For instance, there was a stamp tax going on in Britain at the same time which was generating around 300,000 pounds.

The tax collected via colonial stamps was estimated to be around £60,000.

Yes, there's more people in Britain at the time, but even so the average cost was in favor of the colonists.

But the protests broke through the legal channels and violent means began before it was ever even official.

Nobody had any idea how it actually impact their daily lives.

They just knew there was a foot in the door being taxed more and more.

And remember at this point the colonies had been living in this pseudo autonomy where taxes that had existed prior were not being collected consistently or could be bribed away.

They argued about taxation without representation, but would have, would they have held the same energy had Britain just said okay, we're not going to tax you, but you had to defend yourself against the French and the Spanish and indigenous tax right settlers in America had it probably the best out of any colonial nation.

Very little responsibilities, pure confidence in their self serving ways, demand protection, reject being accountable for paying for that protection.

And all the while massive percentages of laborers doing all of the hard work are being paid exactly zero dollars.

These people were complaining about a potential two shillings and three pence for a year per person.

They argued their British heritage benefited them from being taxed without represented.

But did they care that the British citizens were paying more in taxes, in ways to help pay for a war?

That and soldiers.

That benefited the Americans more than it did them in their home country.

The people who would soon become revolutionaries cried for freedom from oppression, liberty and the ability to live their lives without an overlord lingering to continue milking their money dry.

In April, Sugar act passed.

May through August, colonial merchants began to strategize around the Sugar Act.

In October, Massachusetts House of Representatives petitioned Parliament against the proposed Stamp Act.

In December, more colonial assemblies send petitions to Parliament as well.

And none of them had offered any alternatives at all.

They just stated that the decision should be left to the colonies to make, which is basically just saying don't do it, because it's pretty clear that the colonies didn't want to do it.

February 6, Grenville presented the stamp bill to the House of Commons.

February 27 passes with a large majority.

At the same time, George is struggling with an illness.

No real confirmation that this is his first instance with his future mental illness, but rather a pretty severe flu.

So he remains in contact with Parliament by proxy.

In May, protests began.

Patrick Henry begins his long campaign of speeches inspiring independence.

On May 29, he gave a speech which was not recorded, but according to the journal of a French traveler, the speech is noted in those in his journal.

And he did not know who the person was, but he quoted or he.

He wrote one of the.

One of the members stood up and said that said he had read that in former times.

Tarquin and Julius had their Brutuses, Charles and his Cromwell.

Charles had his Cromwell and he did not doubt that some good Americans would stand up in favor of his country.

People who were present did call out this treason for implied somebody should assassinate the king.

Essentially this is a little more pointed opinion compared some of his contemporaries who viewed Parliament as the true enemy.

Right, because that's who was doing it.

In June, publications began to spread resistance rhetoric through newspapers.

Colonial Congress meeting is scheduled for October.

And for the next few months, eight colonies agreed to attend.

In July, Grenville was replaced by Prime Minister Lord Rockingham, Charles J.G.

wentworth.

Not really it is Charles Wentworth.

But by August, protests go from legislative to violent.

Crowds begin burning effigies of various targets, mostly the stamp distributors of their governors.

On 14 August, a crowd is paraded an effigy of Oliver Andrew Oliver, the stamp distributor from Massachusetts.

After it was hung from a tree, they passed by the governor's office and demolished the building that was going to be used as a stamp office.

They then attacked his home and he resigns.

The following day, on the 26th of August, a large mob destroys the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson.

His family barely escapes, but everything inside is either stolen or destroyed.

The next day, the Boston town hall condemns the action, stating the violence had exceeded useful bounds.

Over the next few months, more violence towards the stamp distributors in different locations take place.

From the 7th to 25th of October, the Stamp Act Congress meets in New York.

27 delegates from nine colonies draft a declaration of rights and grievances and they adopt 14 resolutions which acknowledge the crown supremacy.

Parliament can't do this.

Parliament does not have the right to tax us.

And the King is is the one who should make these decisions.

As November came and the Stamp act took effect, almost all of the stamp distributors had resigned by this point.

Still, the newspapers printed with black borders to symbolize their impending death due to taxes.

Dramatic dudes courts in many colonies decided to close rather than use stamped paper.

Others stayed open and just didn't use it.

By the end of the year, the Sons of Liberty became an intercolonial group linking throughout the corresponding with one another.

Better organize and fight this Stamp Act.

So it's not going well.

Stamp act had officially only collected 45 pounds, just a tad shy of the estimated 60,000.

Crazy, I know.

Across the pond discussions are being held in the Commons.

A familiar name speaks in favor of the colonies William Pitt.

He stated that he would rather cut off his right hand than be enforcing or than before enforcing the Stamp Act.

At the same time, trade boycotts begin in the colonies, which hits the merchants in London who now petition parliament as well.

Benjamin Franklin shows up, goes to the House of Commons to be interviewed and he says check out this kite, dude.

No.

He presents an argument that the colonists view internal taxes as unacceptable, but external duties are acceptable.

Over the next few months, votes are held, but votes to repeal are defeated several times.

George is asked several times to place his support in either direction.

When George decides to back the repeal, although years later he would regret this decision in his decision to repeal.

George stated I thought repealing infinitely more eligible than enforcing which could only tend to widen the breach between this country and America.

Cheering in the streets followed, followed him in his carriage after this decision.

Many of the merchants in London had been hit hard by this boycotts in response to the sugar and standbacks, right.

So they were super pumped.

The Duties in America in American Colonies act and Declaratory act passed both and celebrations began in the colonies as well.

Colonists cheered in favor of the benevolent king, pointed their anger at Parliament for passing it in the first place.

They, they celebrated the passing of the Duties in America act.

Too busy celebrating the taxes.

These are, well these acts, the taxes that they barely paid any to read.

The second act that passed, the Declaratory act which asserted Parliament's right to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.

So they just did.

They couldn't.

A lot of them couldn't read, you know what I mean.

The principle of the previous acts remained and was further entrenched in legal jargon even though the practice had ceased for the moment.

While the colonies celebrated in their victory.

More turmoil for George and his Parliament.

Rockingham's replacement would be the man who had been at odds with George since he became king, a man of the people.

William Pitt, now the Earl of Chatham was appointed as the prime minister.

And it seemed like the biggest move that they could have done since they had a pass full friction, huge thing, right.

George had hoped that this would create a sense of stability and unity within Parliament.

And he was kind of using Pitt's popularity to get favor back to Parliament.

George was willing to support Pitt contrasting their earlier relationship.

And this probably did earn him a bit of favor from the colonies since Pittsburgh had been on the side of the whole Stamp act debacle with, with the colonies.

Now with this perfect placement appointed things seemed like they were going to improve right away.

This was also very short lived though since immediately its health began to fail.

He had severe gout as well as mental illnesses, morbid depression, extreme melancholy that plagued him.

He stayed in his darkened room for hours at a time unable to interact with anyone outside.

Food was passed to him through a hatch in the door to maintain his separation.

For two years he was there.

Government had no head in Parliament.

Oddly enough the king would have his own mental illnesses still a ways away, but like, you know, kind of Interesting that two of the most powerful people in England would suffer from very similar things that weren't common, I guess.

Still, with Pitt out, some decisions had to be made.

Charles Townshend began to propose duties on American imports.

Lead, glass, paper, paints and tea.

Townshend was working on the premise of Benjamin Franklin's comments that the colonists were fine with external duties, just no taxes, internal like the stamp tax.

They, you know, essentially they would pay for stuff that got imported.

But you know, this proved to be inaccurate.

After this new duty placement, British exports fell by half as the colonies began their non importation agreements that they had established during the Stamp Act.

But instead of just getting rid of this, this crazy idea, Frederick Lord north, who had replaced Townshend, signaled his own plans to commit to this plan.

The duty officially.

Duties officially passed in July and the non importation agreements start right away.

Along with the exports of British goods to America being cut in half, intimidation comes down on merchants who have refused to sign the boycotts.

They have their buildings vandalized, windows smashed and fecal matter thrown at.

Charles Townsend dies on the 4th of September, but again his replacement, Frederick Lord north decides to keep it going.

In September, George's brother, his closest childhood friend Prince Edward dies.

George broken up by this extremely emotional and mourning.

In November, George's fourth son was born and he was named Edward in honor of his brother.

Created dedicated to dealing with colonial affairs.

Right.

Seems like a great idea is we have an official office that is going to listen to the concerns of the colonies, specifically the American colonies, and work with them to remedy this.

Unfortunately, the first Colonial secretary was a man named Hillsborough and he hated the Americans.

He hated, he opposed literally every single thing that they wanted to do.

The biggest thing he did to put him at odds with the colonists was to order colonial governors to force their assemblies to ignore the Massachusetts Circular letter which was written by Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr.

It was written in direct response to the Townshend Acts.

Circular in this context means circulated, not round, although maybe it was round two, I don't know.

In summary, Adams argued that the letter that the Townsend in the letter that the Townshend Acts were unconstitutional since the colonies were not represented right in Parliament and despite Parliament being the supreme legislative body, it was not permitted to violate the British Constitution and the natural rights of colonists.

He also stated that they had no interest in being represented in Parliament but wished for a return to the previous arrangements that saw the colonies taxed only by their local assemblies, where they were properly represented.

So Hillsborough orders the governors and their subordinates to ignore this and all of the assemblies to do the same.

This, unsurprisingly, does not go over well.

Back across the pond, John Wilkes returns from his French exile, wins election, and now people in Britain are riding because the constitutional crisis this presents.

And soldiers opened fire on the crowd, killing seven injured, another 15.

This is known as St. George's Fields Massacre.

More riots commence because of this and Parliament is focused on this issue and missed some key developments in America because of it.

What they missed was the governor, Francis Bernard, who oversaw New Jersey and Massachusetts, ordered the General Court to revoke the circular letter and its resolution and they voted 92 to 17 to ignore that.

Governor Bernard then dissolved the assembly, which made people very angry and more riots broke out.

Colonists were angry because of the Mass.

Massachusetts General assembly dissolved.

They had no real way to voice their grievances because their government was just killed off, essentially in June, John Hancock, pretty sure it's Herbie Hancock.

His ship Liberty was seized for violating trade laws, which added to the rioting.

The rioting involves colonists attacking customs officers, preventing them from doing their job, and provokes Hillsborough to order troops to Boston.

Hillsborough sends off a message to Britain describing Virginian riot rioting as more alarming than the ones in Massachusetts.

And this type of messaging indicated that the British government, to the British government, that the situation was because of a few bad actors, small groups rather than a more common mentality spreading across the colonies, non compliant merchants are having their premises decorated with Hillsborough paint, AKA feces.

Four regiments arrived in October with the soldiers only increasing the tense situation.

In addition to the troops merely arriving, they also were being quartered by Bostonians, which is one of the big pillars in the fight for independence.

And then the Constitution, right, the third Amendment, fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, you know, all these things.

So that's adding to some tension.

Violence is not the only thing happening, though.

In November, architect William Chambers and three pairs visit George, King George, to discuss a professional society for arts.

Yes, yes, we must invoke the odds in this drawing time, George, as I've stated, big fan of supporting the arts and enthusiastically supported this at the Royal Academy was founded on 10 December, which was established, quote, without a charter, but merely by the King's signature and with his personal support meaning that the government would not be in any way involved, which is big.

Two female artists, Mary Moser and Angelica Kaufman were appointed at the founding which is pretty huge for the time.

A lot of lady lady artists didn't really get their fair shake at the time, so that's cool.

In December, George also becomes the target of anonymous attacks in the Public Advisor known as the Junius Letters written under a pseudonym.

It is still not proven who penned the letters although the publisher of the Public Advisor was found guilty of printing them only though only printing them right.

1769 was relatively uneventful in terms of revolutionary aspect.

But it was full of moments of George's scientific and artistic appreciation.

In January, Wilkes is elected as the alderman for the city City of London tons of support at this point.

Meanwhile Philadelphia merchants joined the non importation agreement with Massachusetts and New York finally returns to the House of Lords after his two year health crisis.

In May the first Royal Academy summer exhibition commences and Joshua Reynolds has four paintings included and is knighted by King George and appointed as the president for the Academy.

Big month for him.

In June, George and Queen Charlotte observed the transit of Venus from his observatory at Richmond.

He has also donated 4,000 pounds the Royal Society for to support Captain James Cook's expedition to Tahiti.

Fun little connection to another episode anybody.

Cook was the captain that William Bly sailed under on his first voyage to Tahiti before sailing on the Bounty.

George is also spending quite a lot of time with his wife.

Noted observations seeing them walking through various places without any servants.

He gasped.

They're just having some private time together working on some new babies probably at this time.

At the same time the picturesque family view is hindered by George's brother Henry.

In November Henry seen riding openly with his mistress and he was sued for adultery.

And his love letters were then read in court which is an extra level of embarrassment.

I feel like he was ordered to pay £10,000 plus legal fees.

And George super embarrassed by this.

As I stated he a pretty high.

He held morals like super high in a high degree like he they had a whole thing about it.

This time repeating old diatribe of his mother and Bute keeping him ignorant, secretly influencing him.

And three publishers went to trial for seditious libel with two being acquitted and the third walked on a technicality.

And north becomes the new Prime Minister.

And the first one sends butte to George.

Actually genuinely liked he would also be the prime minister for longer than any of his predecessors combined during George's reign.

I should say north is described as a good debater with an agreeable character.

And north gets to work on the American problem immediately.

So sounds like a good sign for the colonists.

Let's check and see how things are going across the pond.

So that's a good sign.

Still, things not very smooth.

The journal of occurrences began spreading which documented the tensions between soldiers and civilians in Boston.

Often exaggerating the accounts and increasing tensions.

Basically like a yellow journalism campaign mudslinging thing about ongoings with the British soldiers.

This was increased after a customs officer named Ebenezer Richardson shot into a crowd of protesters outside his house.

He was trying to disperse the crowd when he fired his gun and then he struck an 11 year old boy named Christopher Snyder.

Not great boy, would later die that day.

In response to that, Samuel Adams arranged for a funeral which turned into a big spectacle with 2,000 people attending.

Richardson would be arrested and tried for murder in the spring, although it would be overturned by pardon on the basis of self defense.

In the aftermath of the child being killed, more protests amassed.

Naturally tensions rose and every interaction had people on edge.

On the 5th of March, the same day the partial repeal went through on the Townsend act, near the Customs House, a wig maker's apprentice named Ed Garrick called out to one of the British soldiers nearby.

He accused the man of not paying a bill at his wig shop despite it having been settled the day prior.

The man Garrick was yelling at was Captain Lieutenant Joan Goldfinch and he ignored the kid because he is a captain, right?

A soldier named Private Hugh White then told the kid that he should be a little more respectful to an officer and got into an insult match with the teenager.

Nice.

During the exchange, Garrett poked the officer in the chest which caused White to abandon his post and yell at the kid.

Hit him with his rifle.

Garrick's friend comes over, all arguing with White and the commotion attracts a large crowd.

The crowd continues to grow, surrounding White and becoming more aggressive.

The church bells rang out which typically were done to signal a fire, which made people come outside.

And then the crowd grew even more around 50 plus people around private White at this point, led by a man named Crispus Attucks, who is an emancipated slave.

And they began throwing things at, at the soldier to egg them on, to fire at them.

A runner retrieved Captain Thomas Preston, the officer on a watch at barracks, who then dispatched several soldiers, including some non commissioned officers and privates from the 29th Regiment.

They were to relieve White, which you know, using fixed bayonets.

Bayonets to create some space in the crowd.

As Preston and his company arrived to the scene, one onlooker grabbed Preston and told him, for God's sakes, take care of your men.

If they fire, you must die.

To which Preston responded, I am aware of it, which seems very like, like a flat thing to say, but you know, they all knew that the tensions were high.

The pretty heated.

By the time the soldiers reached White, there had been around three to 400 people around them.

The soldiers used a semicircle using customs House behind them as a flank protection.

The crowd continued throwing things at them and yelling at them, yelling fire.

Trying to provoke them.

And they spit at them, hurled snowballs filled with rocks, other things which is aggressive, but a really good maneuver.

It's pretty sneaky.

Local innkeeper Richard Palms approached Preston and asked if their rifles were loaded, which Preston assured him that they were, but they would not fire unless he ordered them to, which was unlikely since Preston was standing in front of him.

Right.

Officers in the front, probably not going to shoot at you guys because they'd have to shoot me.

An object was thrown towards the soldiers which struck Private Montgomery, knocked him to the ground.

He dropped his musket on the way down.

And then as he stood, when he grabbed it, picked it up, he shouted, damn you, fire.

He fired his musket off despite there being no official order to do so.

The innkeeper Palms then hit Montgomery with the cudgel he was carrying, tried to hit Preston in the head, misses, hit his arm.

Civilians, soldiers alike were froze after the first shot rang out and after I paused, the soldiers began to fire kind of like indiscriminately, not like a traditional like military volley of like ready and fire.

It was just like, like super random.

Three Americans were killed instantly, being Samuel Gray, James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks.

Another Samuel Maverick was hit by a ricochet, died the next day.

And an Irish immigrant named Patrick Carr was hit and died two weeks later.

Altogether around 11 people were hit.

Five died directly from these shots, Several were injured and a few died later in life with it being attributed to injuries sustained from the bullet that they got here.

So within a two year time frame, British soldiers had fired on civilians.

That's not going to be good for the pr, right?

In the fallout from this public outcry to have troops removed had validity.

Now both remaining regiments in Boston were moved, which led the city to being without any kind of policing.

But locals felt that soldiers staying would have like.

If the soldiers had stayed, they would have never left.

All eight soldiers and two civilians were then put on trial with their defense being led by one John Adams.

Two had been convicted of manslaughter, branded on the hand and everyone else was acquitted.

Following this, things did kind of smooth over for a bit.

They were happy the troops were gone.

New York ceased their non importation agreement.

Boston followed in April.

A statue dedicated to King George inspired by his support to repeal the Stamp Act.

Big crowd gathered around as it was dedicated and shown right this, all the people in attendance with governor, council, assembly clergy, random people.

George was depicted as a Roman with a toga corona, the, you know, the, the crown of leaves, essentially riding atop a horse.

Clearly, despite all of the things that are happening, the public still has favor for the King in the colonies.

So that's pretty cool.

Benjamin Franklin even stated, quote, let us therefore hold fast to our loyalty to the King who has the best disposition towards us, as that steady loyalty is most probable means of securing us from arbitrary power of a corrupt Parliament.

Colonial perception was that the King was the potential protector from the overreaching actions of Parliament.

This is despite the fact that George consistently sided with constitutional positions, that the Parliament held the authority over the colonies.

And it would not be long before this viewpoint would shift.

This causes a lot of support to drift towards the current Prime Minister and George's longtime friend, Frederick North.

So the opposition in Parliament begins to dwindle to George's ideals.

The turn of the new year brings more drama for the King.

Specifically John Wilkes, this time invites him to a play at a theater.

No, the causes the printers publishing parliamentary debates which was not allowed.

Because of this, George is accosted by verbal harassment in the streets.

But he doesn't really care.

1771, pretty mundane as well.

There's some focus on the Royal Academy this year with funding, founding members receiving painting commissions from George and the first gold medals of the Academy being awarded as well.

George's brother Henry marries A woman named Anne Horton.

She had throat cancer and dies from that.

The King had stayed in contact with his mother, visiting her twice a week minimum, and she visited him and his wife at least once a week before she had died.

The doctors told George that he was going to pass soon, and George and Charlotte made their nightly visit to her at 8pm since her diagnosis.

And when he was informed of her imminent end, they arrived at 7pm telling her that they had mistaken the time.

Right.

Kind of sweet.

They wanted to get some extra time with her without being obvious that they knew what was happening.

They spent over four hours together and then when the group parted, she held on extra tight, showed extra affection to both of them and said she should have a tranquil night.

And she died at 6am the following morning.

The death of his mother was hard enough, but what followed was a gut punch that was undeserving.

Her funeral at Westminster Abbey on 13 February.

That day, mobs of heckling citizens gathered to haze and throw jeers at this dead woman.

The main cause, propaganda rumor of her having affair with George's mentor and the first prime minister, Lord Bute.

And there's no evidence that any of that ever happened.

You know, the only thing that ever happened between them was that they took extra care to prepare George to be the King.

Still, rumors persisted and because of this, the King now had to endure mockery to his own mother.

Day she was laid to rest, which can't feel great.

Another rumor had been stated or started saying that she left her entire fortune to butte in her will, which was not true.

She did leave him some money, but it was like not more than she left anybody else.

He was a longtime family friend, of course.

Anyway, things grew more tense by that day, you know, for Monarch across the empire.

The HMS Gaspee was subsequently burned down with the crew being attacked and the captain wounded.

When the British went to investigate the matter, no locals were willing to testify to any of the investigation.

This inspired the Virginia House of Burgesses, the state government, to establish the Committee of Correspondence, which was a proto revolutionary organization that would coordinate opposition.

Also in June on the 12th, Governor Hutchinson tells the Mass assembly that he and the judges are going to be paid from custom revenues instead of assembly funds.

And this takes away the monetary leverage over the bridge British judicial system in the colonies.

Ten days later, a ruling is made that would have major impacts on the future of colonial allegiances.

James Somerset is the man's name, and he escaped while he was in England with Stuart.

When he was found, he was imprisoned once again by Stuart and destined to be shipped off and sold to a plantation in Jamaica.

On his behalf, his three godparents from his baptism, which took place in England, submitted a petition for the king's court benchmark on the basis of habeas corpus.

It was decided by June.

And this decision was that the laws of Britain did not recognize slavery.

And thus a man in England, James Somerset, was bound to know laws of another country.

The laws of England would not allow a slave master to capture, detain or deport any enslaved person while in England.

So he was freed.

The man presiding over the case, Lord Mansfield, had given Charles Stuart a way out of this ruling, as it was not exactly one that would be made without some sort of repercussions down the line.

England had no laws to protect slavery, but their stance was that only laws that should be made about it were ones that enabled it.

So it was not abolished, but definitely not supported the legal gray area to many.

And of course, gray areas where the colonists favorite things back then.

And it enabled them to skip paying any taxes, keeping slaves and basically just keep doing whatever they wanted.

And George, King George, was actually pretty progressive with his ideas on slavery.

He had written on the subject a multitude of times, especially in his youth.

He annotated commentary in Montesquieu's spirit of laws on many books on slavery and its abolishment.

Abolishment.

So why didn't he step in?

Well, despite the what the founding fathers of America would tell you, George used very little of his power to enforce things that would be out of sorts within this status quo.

Right.

Basically, he didn't want to shake things up if he didn't feel that they were absolutely necessary.

He didn't want to step on the constitutional monarchy he was trying to run.

And also it could be bad for business.

Despite the hands off approach, the ruling of the Court of King's Bench did represent Britain until a new ruling would be made, which it wouldn't.

In this representation, Britain was now a. Slavery is an odious part of society and it can only exist where laws explicitly establish it.

Back in America, this was not the news many wanted to hear.

The bulk of the south really kind of panicked at this news is really solidified them to join the colonial movement with their economic incentives now being on par with others who were being hindered by the taxes applied to the colonies.

Outside of that, the Royal Marriages act, which I already discussed.

Good for him for coming forward.

His prime minister, Lord north did, as Chancellor of Oxford University, heard of it.

Boy was reading.

This allowed the East India Company to sell surplus tea directly to America instead of brokering through various merchants in the colonies.

This was a two pronged approach to the British problem of smugglers.

One, it undercut them by halving the price and two, it was just easier, less red tape.

The East India Company was also struggling at the time, since the smugglers had usurped much of their business.

And this was a way to sell stock that had been wasting away in the warehouses in London at the time.

86% of the tea in the colonies was smuggled Dutch tea, which didn't help matters at all.

The colonists saw through the guise of the lower prices and the connection and the Townsend act and the Tea act meant that this new tea would have excise tax on it, but it was monopolized import, which meant at least to the colonists that if they accepted this, they were accepting the terms of those acts.

Basically, they buy the tea, they submit to taxation coming from it and the subsequent taxes to follow.

In June, George personally sees John Harrison receiving his full prize money for inventing accurate marine chronometers.

Solving the long, long longitudinal, yeah, there we go, longitudinal problem while at sea.

The total amount he should have been paid was around £20,000 per.

Harrison felt, used by the Board, that his money was basically being held hostage despite turning over many impressive inventions, each of which should have been paid.

George had petitioned by George.

Yeah.

King George had been petitioned by Harrison and even met with him personally.

He found that it was accurate within 1/3 of 1/2 per day.

The award had been changed over years, like the verbiage of it, to account for improvements on the design.

One such adjustment had been to 15,000 pounds.

If the error was not greater than 40 minutes, the H5 was within a third of a second.

Pretty good.

So George was even more upset with the political trickery of the Board using things like, well, it took him six years to build it.

I mean, is that really efficient?

And one which had been tested within one nautical mile in error was.

The board was convinced it was just luck.

So now King George tells this 80 year old man to petition Parliament one last time and he will see to it that it is hurt.

He informs Parliament of a full dressing down should they not hear the man out, which is basically, you're gonna get screamed at by the King and that's not fun.

Lastly, his designs, which were used more than just by him, people would, you know, see his designs and make copies of it.

Right.

Notable uses.

James Cook used a copy of Harrison's H4 designs on his voyage to Tahiti.

Another copy was loaned to another captain we had met before, one William Bligh.

He was given it on loan before his voyage on the Bounty, which we learned about.

Anyway, George also attends the Royal Navy Review in Portsmouth, gets to ride out on a ship and watch the the new ships sail by, which is pretty cool.

Some ships from London also arrive in America around the end of November.

East India ships arrive in Boston harbor to offload their tea.

But local merchants and Sons of Liberty prevent offloading of the goods.

The ships are confused as to what they should do.

The governor.

They seek an audience with the governor, who Hutchinson, who tells them that they are not allowed to leave until they are offloaded.

So the ships are stuck because they can't leave.

They can't unload, they can't do nothing.

Governor Hutchinson not budging.

You know, the law stated that if a ship was in port for more than 20 days without paying duties, the cargo would be seized.

December 16 arrives, and roughly 7,000 people gather at the Old South Meeting House.

Samuel Adams gives a speech.

And when word comes back that Hutchinson still won't let the ships leave, Adams reportedly said, quote, this meeting can do nothing further to save the country.

Feels dramatic.

That night, somewhere between 30 and 130 colonists disguised themselves.

Popular images that they were dressed as Mohawk Indians, which some did, but they really kind of just threw on whatever disguise they wanted to.

War paint, blankets, feathers.

Not really trying to fool anybody that they were Native Americans.

It was mostly just a symbolic thing.

They were saying that they weren't British anymore.

Right.

They absconded their British clothing.

Something very American.

It's interesting given the symbolism, given what American identity would mean for actual Native Americans in the coming centuries.

Anyway, they boarded three ships over three hours, dumped 342 lot of threes, chests of tea into the harbor, which probably made the fish feel real fancy.

Around £92,000 of tea, worth around $1.7 million in today's money.

They were careful not to damage anything else, even replacing a padlock that they had broken and sweeping the decks afterwards, which is probably my favorite part about this.

We can't make them feel like we're being rude.

You know, we got to sweep up.

Come on.

Come on.

Samuel Adams.

The reaction in the colonies was not universally positive.

Benjamin Franklin called it an act of violent injustice and offered to pay for the tea.

Personal.

Okay, moneybags.

George Washington condemned the destruction of property.

Many colonial leaders thought this had gone too far.

George was furious.

Not in the ranting tyrant way he's often portrayed, but in the cold, calculated way of a man who had been watching this unfold for over a decade.

And this is where we kind of need to understand something crucial about George iii.

That kind of gets lost and the tyrannical man narrative.

He studied everything.

He analyzed and watched everything.

Like I say, he's hands off in terms of the government that is not to say he's not paying attention, because he is.

He's paying attention to literally everything.

He kept meticulous notes on colonial affairs.

He read dispatches for governors.

He made copies of different things, analyzed trade figures, tracked political factions, did his own math on different things, Knew Samuel Adams was a firebrand and Benjamin Franklin was a pragmatist.

He understood that the southern colonies had different motivations than New England.

He saw how Somerset ruling had spooked the plantation class.

This man was not ignorant about what was happening across the Atlantic.

But the tragic irony of George III is, you know, he had strong opinions about what had gone wrong and what needed to be done.

He believed the colonial assemblies had been given too much latitude.

He thought Grenville's Stamp act had been poorly executed, but not wrong.

He recognized that every concession had only emboldened the opposition.

But he wouldn't act on it unilaterally.

And this is what separates George from the tyrant of the American mythology.

George believed in constitutional monarchy as a genuine principle.

Parliament held the authority to legislate.

The cabinet held the authority to execute policy.

His role was to advise, appoint good ministers, give or withhold assent.

When he thought the Stamp act repeal was a mistake, he said so privately, but signed it anyway because Parliament had decided.

This wasn't weakness, this was principle.

He genuinely believed that the king who overrode Parliament would destroy the very system that made Britain great.

You know, this is.

This is a man stuck in this very, like, weird spot of the kings of old transitioning into, like, our modern British kings, You know, like, what's going on there.

They're more figureheads, right?

They're.

They're less involved, and they're more of just a person, a representative of the place.

So that's kind of a hard spot to be in.

And the problem was that this principled restraint looked like something else.

From 3,000 miles away.

To colonists, the king was the face of British government.

Government, the cult, the constitutional niceties of who actually held what authority meant nothing to a merchant in Philadelphia who just wanted to sell his goods without paying duties he had no voice in establishing.

And George knew this.

He read pamphlets.

He saw how people were portraying him.

He understood that no matter how carefully he worked within constitutional limits, he would bear the blame for whatever Parliament decided.

And that's also kind of part of his job, too.

He wrote to lord north that the colonists must either submit or triumph.

This wasn't the raving of a madman.

This Was cold assessment of someone who had watched every attempt and compromise fail.

Parliament responded with the Coercive Acts, or as the colonists called them, the Intolerable Acts.

Want to actually look at what these contain?

Because the name done a lot of heavy lifting in the American memory.

The Boston Port act close Boston harbor until the destroyed tea was paid for, which we talked about $1.7 million ish in today's money.

And trade was restricted until restitution was made.

You know, we wouldn't really, if that happened today, we wouldn't consider that tyranny.

We'd be like, yeah, well you shouldn't have done that.

The Massachusetts Government act changed how the colonial council was appointed and restricted town meetings.

But the colonists were still going to have elected assembly, local courts, more democratic participation than most people on earth at that point, including people in Britain.

The Administration of Justice act allowed royal officials accused of crimes to be tried in Britain if they couldn't get a fair trial locally.

This wasn't about letting murderers go free.

This was about ensuring officials could do their job without fearing kangaroo court convictions.

And the Quartering act required colonists to house British soldiers if barracks weren't available.

Invasive, yes, but these soldiers were there because of ongoing unrest.

The colonists had been attacking customs officials, burning ships, tarring and feathering loyalists.

And the Quebec act extended Quebec's borders to the Ohio river, cutting off western expansion while guaranteeing religious freedom to Catholics.

And the irony gets a little thick here.

The colonists were outraged that the Catholic the Quebec act gave rights to Catholics.

These freedom loving patriots were furious that French Canadians would be allowed to practice their own religion.

The Declaration of Independence would later complain about this arbitrary government.

The arbitrary government they were complaining about was one that let Catholics exist.

So kind of funny.

The westward expansion they were angry about losing.

That was land already inhabited by native Americans who had been promised protection from colonial encroachment.

The colonists were angry about the tyranny in the abstract.

They were angry that the British government was preventing them from taking indigenous lands.

Now and then when we talk about intolerable acts, we need to be honest about what was actually intolerable.

Paying for destruction of property, having slightly less control over local appointments, just freedom and being told they couldn't take indigenous lands.

Compare this to what the colonists were doing.

Slavery was an economic engine of the southern colonies.

20% of the colonial population was enslaved.

When the Declaration of Independence complained about the king exciting domestic insurrections among us, they were complaining about British officials suggesting that enslaved people might be freed if they decided to fight for the Crown, liberty in the colonial context includes liberty to own human beings and the indigenous peoples.

The revolution would unleash westward expansion, resulting in centuries of displacement, broken treaties, genocide, you know, Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee, destruction of entire nations.

Pretty low key.

The tyranny.

Being told to honor existing treaties was intolerable.

But what replaced it was worse.

I'm not saying this to excuse British imperialism.

You know, Britain had its own horrific record.

But the specific grievances that sparked the revolution look remarkably thin when examined closely and then compared to to the actions of the colonies right after.

And this nation that emerged from this perpetuate.

The nation that emerged would perpetrate systematic horrors that dwarf anything King George III ever did to the colonists.

This is a little bit of an uncomfortable history.

And George refused to receive it because that's not the way things go.

Receiving the petition would legitimize the extralegal assembly making demands outside proper channels.

George accepting it would mean accepting that the colonies were already effectively independent.

April 18, 700 British regulars marched towards Concord to seize stockpile weapons.

Paul Revere wrote out with a warning next morning at Lexington Green.

Someone fired.

Nobody knows who.

Eight colonists died on the march back.

Colonial militiamen fired from every wall and tree, guerrilla warfare style.

And The British lost 73 men and 174 were wounded.

George learned of Lexington and Concord in late May.

He had tried to work within the system.

None of it had mattered.

But even at this point, independence wasn't a foregone conclusion.

Many colonists themselves, they still thought that they were British.

They were subject to restore their rights within the empire.

The psychological leap from we want our traditional rights as Englishmen to we want to be a separate nation hadn't happened for most people in the colonies at this point.

That leap required a push.

He was 37, twice failed in business, recently separated from his second wife, hired from his job, and as as an excise tax collector and had something the revolution desperately needed.

He understood the workings of propaganda, as it were.

Paine wasn't a philosopher.

He was a pamphleteer who understood that you can't start a revolution with careful constitutional arguments.

It can't inspire farmers and shopkeepers to fight the most powerful empire on the earth by explaining English common law.

You need something simpler.

You need a villain.

Within three months, 100,000 to 150,000 copies were circulating in a population of 2.5 million.

That's a lot.

And unlike careful petitions before it was written for common people.

To paraphrase Malcolm X and Living Color quote, he talked right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand.

Payne knew exactly what he was doing when he made King George the centerpiece and tell Common Sense.

Most grievances have been directed at Parliament.

George had often been portrayed as sympathetic to the colonies, a good king misled by bad advisors.

They had literally built him a statue six years before this, and Paine demolished all of that.

He called George the royal brute of Britain, a hardened, sullen tempered pharaoh.

He compared him to every tyrant in history.

And the crazy thing is, Paine knew that this was not real.

Painad lived in England his entire life.

Just over a year before this, he understood how the British constitutional system worked.

He knew the king's power was constrained by Parliament.

He knew George had actually supported repealing the Stamp Act.

But accuracy was not the point.

The point was to give revolution of face, get people united behind a common enemy.

And if you think I'm being too harsh on Thomas Paine, keep in mind he would brandish these same grifting tactics against George Washington.

You know that guy?

A hypocrite who talked about liberty while owning slaves, and a treacherous friend who had abandoned Payne in a French prison during the Terror.

Washington, whom Payne had once lionized, became just another target when Paine felt slighted.

There were very few who wouldn't find themselves under his crosshairs should his need arise.

George III was not special in being vilified by Thomas Paine.

He was just the first and most consequential victim.

Payne understood that the abstract grievances don't motivate people.

Tyrannical kings do.

Bad guys do.

He needed George III to be a monster because fighting a monster is noble.

Fighting a moderate constitutional monarch is complicated, and complications don't win revolutions.

So Paine created George III that bore little resemblance to the actual man.

He stripped away all the nuance and replaced it with a caricature of despotism.

Never mind that Parliament had passed these laws.

Never mind that George had often been a moderating influence.

What mattered was the story.

That tyrant king oppressed his innocent subjects, and it worked.

God did it work.

Within months, what had been movement to restore traditional rights became a movement for total independence.

A statue of King George in New York pulled down, as I mentioned, at the.

In the cold open, melted into musket balls.

That's.

That's the power of propaganda right there.

The Declaration of Independence followed Paine's playbook perfectly.

Little alliteration right there.

It begins with philosophical principles, you know, pivots to a long indictment of King George III personally.

He has refused, he has forbidden, he has dissolved 27 specific charges, all laid at the king's feet.

Not Parliament.

The king, one man.

The guy, the villain.

And Jefferson knew this wasn't quite accurate.

It was.

A lawyer understood con.

Understood constitutional nuance.

But he knew that Paine had proven something that people don't rebel against him.

Institutions, right?

How different is this from modern political propaganda?

Find a face for the enemy, simplify the complex, make the institutional personal.

Create a villain people can hate.

Watch any modern political campaign, same playbook.

Payne would recognize it all.

He pioneered it.

Common sense didn't succeed because it was accurate.

It succeeded because it told a simple story with a clear villain.

And while George iii, he was a man of genuine principle who tried to work within constitutional bounds, who loved his family, supported the arts, sciences, held complex views and progressive views on slavery.

That doesn't fit the story.

So the royal brute was born.

And this cartoon version is what we in America learned in 250 years later.

Still learning the story, living with the story that Payne told.

You watch.

You watch Hamilton.

And King George is this angry, hostile man.

I'll kill your friends and family to remind you of my love.

Send a fully armed battalion.

All this spitting while he's yelling, which he might have done, I don't know.

But you know, this is not something that is taken in context.

The.

The.

The realness of the person, the gray area, as it were.

Now, the war itself would drag on for years.

George would watch as his generals failed in his empires contracted, and he would experience the first bouts of his mental illness that would eventually consume him.

And through it all, he would remain the man he had always been.

Principled, restrained, committed to constitutional order even as it crumbled around him.

But that's a story for part three, and we'll cover the war, the illness, the loss, and the long twilight of a king who lived long enough to be forgotten and remembered again, always through this weird lens of things people said about him and not his own words.

So thank you for listening.

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And until next time, fellow scholars, keep questioning the past.

The future will thank you.

See you next time.