149. The road to committee room 15

It’s time for that exciting moment in American (and British) history, the Boston Tea Party. But tea, as well as being a commodity deeply rooted in the British soul, is also a wonderful link between the two wings of Britain’s growing Empire, India and North America. In India, of course, power was still being exercised by the East India Company. That had disastrous results in the subcontinent, and a corrupting effect in Britain. But the government found itself powerless to do anything about it, while the Indian people, especially of Bengal, suffered tragically. As for North America, that was where the East India Company, then going through lean times, was hoping that exports would help it rebuild its fortunes. Tea was to be the product that would do the trick. But in fact, it only led to another grinding step downwards in relations between mother country and colonies, one that brought closer the approaching disaster (for Britain). Illustration: Boston Tea Party. Original uploader was Cornischong at lb.wikipedia - Source:W.D. Cooper. ‘Boston Tea Party’, The History of North America. London: E. Newberry, 1789.Engraving. Plate opposite p. 58. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Transferred from lb.wikipedia Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

8 Okt 202114min

The moment has arrived. The Americans are, at last, revolting. And it was far from inevitable. What made sure it would happen was the brainlessness of British leaders, most specifically in this episode, General Thomas Gage in America and Lord North in London. Gage landed troops in Boston to restore order. But putting an army amongst a resentful civilian population was never going to end well. And it didn’t. The killing of a child and then the event that came to be known as the Boston Massacre kept the resentments alive. But still a spark was needed. And that would be provided, as we’ll see in the next episode, by Lord North. Illustration: The Landing of British troops in Boston, 1768. Public domain Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

1 Okt 202114min

Faced with deepening and increasingly violent resistance to its rule in the American colonies, Britain's new Prime Minister, the Marquess of Rockingham, repealed the Stamp Act that had excited so much anger. William Pitt, in particular, spoke out forcefully against that Act, and Benjamin Franklin warned British parliamentarians of the difficulties ahead. However, Rockingham and even Pitt, still believed that Britain had the right to impose its will on the colonies. Repeal of the Stamp Act was followed up two months later by passage of the Declaratory Act, asserting British control in America, at just the time when that control was beginning to unravel. With its back to the wall, Britain was clearly unable to read the writing on it. Note and apology: To anyone who listened to the first version of this episode: it incorrectly stated that William Pitt the Elder had already been raised to the House of Lords as Earl of Chatham when he spoke for the repeal of the Stamp Act. In fact, that didn't happen until later the same year. I've corrected the episode to remove that error. Illustration: Rockingham, the Prime Minister who repealed the Stamp Act, but then passed the Declaratory Act asserting Britain’s control over the colonies. After Sir Joshua Reyonolds, ca 1768 National Portrait Gallery 406 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

29 Sep 202113min

The British government of the 1760s couldn’t complain that nobody had warned it of the catastrophic consequences of trying to inflict taxes on the American colonists, without their consent. 'American' was increasingly the right word for them, as various forces, including non-English immigration, began to change the nature of the population. Even so, they remained for the most part wedded to their British roots. Their anger at the government’s behaviour wasn’t just a rejection of British highhandedness. On the contrary, many of them spoke out as Brits against Britain’s trampling on long-established British rights they saw themselves as defending. It wasn’t just the American-British of the colonies speaking out. There were voices in Britain itself defending their cause. One of the more remarkable was that of self-made soldier and MP, Isaac Barré. An interesting man to get to know, as we do in this episode. Illustration: Portrait of a passionate spokesman for the American colonists: Isaac Barré by Gilbert Stuart, ca 1785. National Portrait Gallery 1191 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

22 Sep 202114min

Lord Bute, as Prime Minister, did what he could to attack the British public debt by reducing costs. But there were limits to how far he could go. Eventually, he needed to raise taxes too. With his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Pitt’s former friend and now political enemy George Grenville, he pushed through a tax on cider. Then, after Bute fell and was replaced by the same Grenville, it was time to try taxing the American colonists. There were widespread objections to the Sugar Tax, but eventually it was grudgingly accepted and generally paid. Sadly, Grenville couldn’t simply accept that small win. He overreached with another tax he thought was an exceptionally smart move: the Stamp Act. And with that he effectively drove the first nail into the coffin of Britain’s imperial position in North America. Illustration: George Grenville, the ‘Gentle Shepherd’, published by Richard Houston, after William Hoare, circa 1750-1775 National Portrait Gallery D20047 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

10 Sep 202114min

It may not come as a surprise to discover that many authorities believe that, if you’re doing a long journey at sea, it can be helpful to know where you are. Working out your latitude was relatively simple and had been known for a long time before the eighteenth century. Longitude was another matter. The British government even put up a prize for the first to come up with a really viable solution. Enter John Harrison, a remarkable craftsman. He started as a joiner, so a skilled woodworker. When he started building clocks, he used wood for the work. But he realised that, to build a chronometer, a device that could tell sailors at sea the time in a specified distant location, e.g. London, he would have to work in metals. So he taught himself to do so. He impressed the Board of Longitude in 1737 with his first prototype, but he wasn’t happy with it himself. So he spent another 27 years building three more, with financial support from the Board. In 1764, his fourth prototype, the size of a large watch, passed the test required for the prize. A lot of this work had been funded by the grants from the Longitude Board, a public body. That’s a model for research that persists to this day. As do the techniques that followed the success of his chronometer: mass production of the devices, exploring techniques that would be the hallmark of the industrial revolution. The Longitude story is about helping sailors navigate at sea. But it’s also about ways of dealing with Research and Development, and with Manufacturing processes, that went far further still. It shows how much can be achieved by the clever use of government funds well invested. Illustration: John Harrison by Thomas King, with his successful fourth prototype chronometer. Science Museum Group Collection, released under Creative Commons Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

3 Sep 202114min

You may like or loathe the British Empire. But if the aim was to build it, few people did it with such skill or such success as William Pitt the Elder when, at last, he found himself the driving force in government. However, to achieve his goal, he spent huge amounts of money, for which he drove up the national debt to levels many thought unacceptable, because unsustainable. And one of those people was the king. This is a recurring occurrence in English history. From time to time the cost-cutters take charge. When it comes to bold or dramatic initiatives, that means killing them. The architects of such initiatives are, of course, simply discarded. So failure was the reward for all Pitt’s success, when he was driven from office. Illustration: William Pitt after the failure with which his peers and his king had rewarded all his success. After Richard Brompton, based on a work of 1772 National Portrait Gallery 259 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

27 Aug 202114min

The second of our Two Young Men Unleashed, after James Wolfe, is Robert Clive. He too was of minor gentry background, but the resemblance ends there. His childhood was marked by some violence, courage, and even criminality: he ran a protection racket for a time. These qualities served him well as he emerged as an unexpectedly gifted soldier in the service, not of Britain, but of the British East India Company, using military force as well as bribery to advance its interests, and his own, in the subcontinent. In this way, he helped turn India into a source of colossal wealth for the shareholders of the company, while also making a massive fortune for himself, even though it reduced the people from whom that wealth was being sucked, to dire poverty and even famine. His lack of scruples fits with an adolescence marked by violence and criminality. Or, to put it differently, that past fits well with the nature of the imperial power he helped launch. Driven by profit, it treated all other concerns as secondary. And the Indians paid the price. Illustration: Benjamin West, Shah 'Alam, Mughal Emperor, Conveying the Grant of the Diwani (the right to collect taxes in Bengal) to Lord Clive, August 1765. In reality, the transaction happened in Clive’s tent, with the throne being a chair placed on top of a table covered by a cloth. From Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain, including in the US. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

20 Aug 202114min