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On October 7, 1763, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which legally restricted any westward expansion of American colonies beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The goal was to prevent the cost of any further conflict with the native Americans since the French and Indian War had just ended (browse Rag Linen’s French and Indian War Collection, which includes the Definitive Treaty of Friendship and Peace ending the war) .  However, the Proclamation resulted in what some historians consider the first cause of the American Revolution.

According to the Origins of the American Revolution by John Chester Miller (1959):

“One of the chief reasons why Americans had rejoiced in the peace terms of 1763 was that the West seemed to have been thrown open to their expansion. The removal of the French menace had, it was believed, made possible at long last the settlement of the American West by British subjects… Since the Indians had taken to the warpath in 1763 partly because they fears they were about to be deprived of their lands by the advancing line of white settlement, the British government issued a proclamation which established a line of demarcation — roughly the summit of the Alleghenies — westward of which no British subject could purchase land or settle. Hastily drawn and designed only to meet a temporary emergency, the Proclamation of 1763 became the foundation of a permanent British policy toward the American West.”

To many colonists, particularly those on the frontier, who were often called the Piedmont, Mother England was being over protective of her American children. According to The Real History of the American Revolution: A New Look at the Past by Alan Axelrod, “after the Proclamation of 1763, [colonists] began to think of themselves as victims of tyranny.”

Below is the first report of the Proclamation of 1763 as published in the October 4 to 8, 1763 issue of the London Gazette.

On April 16, 1763, King George III appointed George Grenville First Lord of the Treasury, or Prime Minister, of Great Britain — the second of four different prime ministers appointed by George III between 1762 and 1766. During the 18th century, the title First Lord of the Treasury was often preferred to Prime Minister.

Grenville was immediately confronted with serious economical challenges, including a national debt that almost doubled during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763).

Parliament anticipated the debt increasing with the ongoing defense of American colonial interests so new revenue sources were needed, and fast.

On March 9, 1764, Grenville presented his new national budget, which proposed the Sugar Act and served as the official Stamp Act teaser of what was heading to the colonies a year later. According to The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff (2005):

“While the colonists conducted operations against the duties on molasses, the most thoughtful among them worried about the possibility that still another tax would be levied on America. They owed the worry to George Grenville, who on March 9, 1764, the day he introduced the proposals for the new molasses duties, warned that to meet the national expenses ‘it may be proper to charge certain Stamp Duties in the said Colonies and Plantations.’”

The external taxing of the Sugar Act and internal taxing of the Stamp Act were both aimed at raising revenue from America, but the Stamp Act was unlike any other legislation that previously affected the colonies.  Learning of the Stamp Act in 1764 as the first internal tax likely to be levied within the colonies, fueled the fire of revolution.  Colonists understood its certain widespread impact on the local economies, and many were familiar with or had already experienced similar stamp taxes in England.

After Grenville announced his plans on March 9, 1764, it wasn’t long before the bundled news of taxation, including the Stamp Act teaser, reached the American shores. Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette first reported a “Scheme of Taxation of the American Colonies” in its May 10, 1764 issue:

“That it had been previously debated in the Parliament, whether they had Power to lay such a Tax on Colonies which had no Representatives in Parliament, and determined in the Affirmative: That on the Ninth of March Mr. [Grenville] made a long Harrangue on the melancholy State of the Nation, overloaded with heavy Taxes, and a Debt of 146 Millions, 52 Millions of which had arisen in the four last Years… To raise this Sum, he proposed that the Drawbacks on Re-exportation of particular Goods should be discontinued: That a Duty be laid… of 10 s. per Hundred on Sugars… Besides this, an internal Tax was proposed, a Stamp Duty, etc. but many Members warmly opposing it, this was deferred till next Session; but it was feared that the Tax upon foreign Goods would pass into a Law this Session.”

Franklin, whose Pennsylvania Gazette published the above report, has a unique history with the Stamp Act. During the summer of 1764, Franklin sailed to London to condemn the act and Great Britain’s taxation scheme.

“But when he arrived he found that the grinding at the mills of government was going on much too evenly to be disturbed by the introduction of any such insignificant foreign substance as a colonial protest,” according Benjamin Franklin by John Torrey Morse (1898).

In a letter to a Philadelphia friend (that was eventually made public), Franklin expressed sentiments of moderation or compliance with the Stamp Act when he wrote “We might well have hindered the sun’s setting. That we could not do. But since its down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles.”

With these words, Franklin soon experienced one of his biggest PR nightmares as his reaction was strongly contradicted by the colonists’ response of resentment and revolt. And nightmare quickly escalated into crisis.

Franklin’s printing partner, David Hall, sent a warning to Franklin in London and expressed concern for his safety should he return soon: “The spirit of the people is so violently against everyone they think has the least concern with the Stamp law.”

According to Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin biography, the frenzy climaxed in late September 1765  — a full month before the Stamp Act went into effect — when an angry anti-tax mob attempted to destroy Franklin’s new home. The mob was deterred by a group of supporters known as the White Oak Boys.

By mid 1766, Franklin’s reputation was fully restored in America after colonists learned that Franklin played an integral role in convincing Parliament to repeal of the Stamp Act.

The French and Indian War in America was formally concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763.  As the May 1763 issue of Gentleman’s Magazine (printed in London) reports, “The Definitive Treaty of Friendship of Peace between his Britannick Majesty, the Most Christian King, and the King of Spain. Concluded at Paris, the 10th day of February 1763; to which the King of Portugal acceded on the same day.” Five days later, on February 15, 1763, the Treaty of Hubertusburg ended the Seven Years’ War in Europe.  The April issue of Gentleman’s Magazine printed an “Abstract of the Definitive Treaty of Peace between the Empress Queen and the King of Prussia.”

Gentleman’s Magazine – March and April 1763