National politics, 1774–1780

Despite the success of opposition candidates Edmund Burke (Opposition Whig) and Henry Cruger (a New Yorker) in Bristol, North won the 1774 general election with ease. Now he had to try to resolve his policy over the increasingly intransigent American colonies. He favoured conciliation but his cabinet wanted action. He offered the colonies freedom from parliamentary taxation if they voluntarily provided funds for the navy and the army for the newly emerging empire.

Only Nova Scotia succumbed. North's hopes of separating New York and Pennsylvania from the more militant states failed. At the same time General Gage, based in Boston, tried to secure an arms depot and so the first battles of the war of independence were fought at Lexington and Concord.

In 1775 there was a polarisation of British public opinion with plentiful petitions both for and against the war. The church favoured the government and firm action. Dissenters supported the opposition and peace. William Pitt the elder favoured giving the colonies the right to tax and Burke called for reconciliation. On 23 August 1775 North made the ‘Proclamation of Rebellion’, in effect a declaration of war against the colonies.

It was only on 4 July 1776 that the thirteen colonies made the Declaration of Independence. War did not lead immediately to the dislocation of trade that many feared. Industries involved in armaments and munitions indeed saw a boom. Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations showed that trade was not as dependent on strict regulation, as was then thought.

In 1777 military strategy concentrated on trying to cut off New England. General Burgoyne, author of the 1772 India Report, led an army of 5000 troops from Quebec in Canada through Philadelphia intending to join up with Earl Howe's main British army in the south. Burgoyne was cut off and had to surrender at Saratoga on 17 October 1777. This defeat suggested that the British might lose and, if they won, the war would be lengthy and costly.

In February 1778 France entered an alliance with the United States and in 1779 Spain joined them. Lord North thus faced a colonial war with major European complications. At home merchants became concerned at the danger to their shipping from a European war. Irish trade was particularly hit.