Unit 6:: Tax Acts, Declaring Independence, and the American Revolution (1763–1783)
A Milestone Documents E-text
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https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844520.book.part.026

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Abstract

The Great War for Empire from 1756 to 1763 significantly expanded the British Empire but also escalated its debt and triggered Indian rebellions in the trans-Appalachian territory. In need of a new imperial order with additional tax revenues, British politicians decided to abandon the old governing principle of “salutary neglect.” The task of imperial reform first fell to the widely respected politician George Grenville, whose 1764 Currency Act banned colonial paper money as legal tender and whose Sugar Act of the same year lowered the duty on molasses imports but tightened enforcement and put vice admiralty courts in charge of prosecutions.

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