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The Stamp Act passed by Parliament March 22 is the first measure to impose direct taxes on Britain's American colonists, whom British troops have protected from the French at considerable expense (see 1764). Intended to raise £60,000 per year and slated to take effect in November, the act requires revenue stamps on all newspapers, pamphlets, playing cards, dice, almanacs, legal documents, and papers used in everyday business transactions. News of the measure reaches the colonies in the last week of May; Benjamin Franklin at London has failed to dissuade Prime Minister Grenville to give up his proposal for the measure, learns that Philadelphians have threatened his house and family, and begins a campaign to have the act repealed (see 1766). Many Bostonians believe that Boston-born Superior Court chief justice Thomas Hutchinson, 53, has instigated passage of the bill, a mob sacks his stately residence; Hutchinson escapes unhurt, but a number of valuable documents and manuscripts are destroyed, and Hutchinson begins giving secret advice to Parliament with regard to repressive measures against what he considers the "common sort" of Americans, who are not in his view to be trusted (see Boston "Massacre," 1770).
The Quartering Act passed by Parliament May 15 orders colonists to provide barracks and supplies for British troops. The new law requires "civil officers of villages, towns, townships, cities, districts, and other places, within his Majesty's dominions in America . . . to billet and quarter the officers and soldiers" in barracks "and if there shall not be sufficient room in said barracks . . . in inns, livery stables, ale houses, victuallinghouses" (see 1774).
Self-taught Virginia lawyer Patrick Henry, 29, protests the Stamp Act in the House of Burgesses May 29: "Tarquin and Caesar each had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third . . ." The Speaker interrupts by crying, "Treason," but Henry resumes, ". . . may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
Sons of Liberty clubs spring up at Boston and at other colonial towns, where agitators organize working-class gangs to resist the Stamp Act, and a Stamp Act Congress convenes at New York in October on the initiative of Bostonian James Otis. Protesting taxation without representation, delegates from nine colonies resolve to import no goods that require payment of duty (see 1766; Townsend Act, 1767).
The foreign office at London appoints Surrey-born army officer William Tryon, 36, governor of the North Carolina colony. He owed his appointment as lieutenant governor last year to the political connections of his wife, Margaret (née Wake). The governor has died, Tryon succeeds him, and when he insists on enforcing the Stamp Act, he makes New Bern the colonial capital and begins building a luxurious residence ("Tryon's Palace") at New Bern. The resulting furor is so intense that he suggests bringing in army regulars to suppress the violence and maintain order (see Regulators, 1768).
The 227-foot, 3,500-ton, three-decked, three-masted Royal Navy vessel H.M.S. Victory launched by British shipwrights is a first-rate ship of the line (so called because lines of ships in naval encounters fire broadsides at each other; a first-rater has more than 100 guns).
Britain's bumbling prime minister George Grenville makes George III promise not to employ former prime minister Lord Bute in any office or seek his counsel but resigns July 16 after a disastrous 2-year ministry in which he has tried to control all crown patronage and alienated almost everybody, including the king. A new ministry takes office headed by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 35, 2nd marquis of Rockingham.
William, duke of Cumberland, dies at London October 31 at age 44.
The Holy Roman Emperor Franz I dies at Innsbruck August 18 at age 56 after a 20-year reign with his wife, Maria Theresa. She succeeds as co-regent with their son, 24, who will reign until 1790 as Josef II.
Spanish inspector general (visitador general) José Gálvez, 45, arrives in New Spain, where in the next 6 years he will reorganize the northern defenses of the viceroyalty, occupy upper California, reorganize the tax system, and establish a government monopoly on tobacco.
Bengal's puppet nabob Mir Jafar dies February 5 at age 73 (approximate), having suffered from leprosy and an addiction to opium. He is succeeded by his 15-year-old son who will reign until next year as Najam-ud-Doula. The Mughal emperor Shah Alam II legalizes the British East India Company's position in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, giving it the power to collect revenues there and becoming a pensioner of the company (see 1764). The company guarantees the defense of Oudh on condition that Shuja-ud-Dawlah bear the cost of whatever troops are needed, but it gives up trying to govern the provinces through a puppet nabob. Sir Robert Clive installs the emperor in a comfortable palace at Allahabad and begins a second governorship that will continue until 1767 (see 1771; abolition of French East India Company, 1769).
The Mughal emperor Shah Alam II acts August 12 to give Robert Clive of the British East India Company authority to collect revenues in Bengal.
The world's first savings bank opens in Brunswick. The German bank inspires other European entrepreneurs to open thrift institutions (see 1799).
Colonial merchants in at least nine American towns vote to refuse all British imports until the Stamp Act is repealed, but these "non-importation" agreements are often self-serving and have only a limited impact. The merchants have in many cases run up large debts to their suppliers while loading up on inventories of goods in dull colors or outdated designs that cannot be sold at good prices. An economic depression begins at Boston that will stifle business, produce widespread unemployment, and throw many Bostonians into debtors' prisons. Workingmen and sailors average £15 to £20 per year when jobs are available, but it takes roughly £60 per year to support a family in the town, even when the wife makes all clothes except for hats, shoes, overcoats, and Sunday best.
Clergyman-astronomer Nevil Maskelyne, now 32, takes office as Britain's fifth astronomer royal February 8, attends a meeting of the Board of Longitude as its newest commissioner February 9, approves the awarding of money to mathematician Leonhard Euler and the widow of the late Tobias Mayer, and then reads aloud a long memorandum extolling his lunar method of determining longitude. Parliament adopts a new longitude act some weeks later, berating chronometer inventor John Harrison for not revealing his secrets, which he finally agrees to do. French horologer Pierre Leroy, 48, meanwhile invents another ship's chronometer; he has discovered the isochronism of spiral springs, has originated the detached escapement, and produces an instrument that embodies all the essential features of the modern ship's chronometer, for which John Harrison, now 72, receives £10,000 in the fall after dismantling his watch and explaining the function of each part, under oath, over the course of 6 days (see Cook, 1773).
Colonial American shipping interests have 28,000 tons of shipping and employ some 4,000 seamen. Exports of tobacco are nearly double in value the exports of bread and flour, with fish, rice, indigo, and wheat next in order of value. The major shippers are the Cabots and Thomas Russell of Boston, Francis Lewis of New York, and Samuel Butler of Providence.
A new canal opens to link France's Loire and Rhône Rivers (see 1600; 1603).
The Royal Society admits moral philosopher Richard Price on the basis of work that he has done on mathematical probability, work that lays the foundation of a scientific actuarial system for life insurance and old-age pensions (see 1771).
Calendar of Flora and the Garden by English clergyman-naturalist Gilbert White, 45, is a journal of observations that he has made in his own Hampshire garden since he was ordained in 1751.
Chemist Mikhail V. Lomonosov dies at St. Petersburg April 15 (April 4 Old Style) at age 53. He has been Russia's first major scientist.
The Westminster New Lying-in Hospital founded at London accepts wives of tradesmen and artisans who are turning more and more to male physicians rather than midwives to deliver their infants.
The first American medical school opens at the College and Academy of Philadelphia. The school will become the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Local physician John Morgan, 30, is appointed North America's first professor of medicine, having studied at Edinburgh and Paris and in Italy; he outlines his policies in "Discourse upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America," but most colonial physicians oppose his idea of requiring a liberal education for medical students and separating medicine, surgery, and pharmacology into distinct disciplines.
Irish-born New York religious leader Barbara Heck (née Ruckle), 31, organizes the first Methodist Church in America.
Lisbon finally abolishes the auto-da-fé parade that for more than 2 centuries has been the occasion for ritual sentencing and violence against Jews and heretics, sometimes with spectacular public burnings.
Nonfiction: Commentaries on the Laws of England by English jurist William Blackstone, 42, relies considerably on the "Analysis of the Civil Part of the Law" by the late Sir Matthew Hale, who died in 1676. Blackstone lists the powers to which British subjects are entitled under the 1689 act and calls it "the bill of rights." He calls perjury one of those "crimes and misdemeanors that are forbidden by the superior laws" established by God and nature; along with theft, it is "therefore stiled mala in se . . . actions that are naturally and intrinsically wrong."
Doctor Johnson meets the tall, taciturn brewer Henry Thrale, 37, and his "Blue Stocking" wife, Hester Lynch (née Salusbury), 24, in January and is invited to take up residence in their house at Streatham, Surrey, where the lexicographer will continue to live for the next 16 years, attracting figures such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, David Garrick, Fanny Burney, and Edmund Burke as the short, plump, lively, intelligent Mrs. Thrale makes her home an intellectual salon. ("Blue Stockings"—so called because they wear ordinary clothes to their meetings—will have no part of cards, gambling, and other foolish pastimes but rather try to imitate French salons.)
Fiction: The Castle of Otranto by English man of letters Horace Walpole, 47, 4th earl of Orford, is the first Gothic horror novel and marks the beginning of the romantic school of English fiction.
Painting: The Gladiator by English painter Joseph Wright, 31; Corisus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirhoé and The Swing by French painter Jean Honoré Fragonard, 33; Mme. Pompadour by François Boucher, who is appointed court painter at Versailles; Young Girl Weeping Over Her Dead Bird by Jean Baptiste Greuze; Mrs. George Watson by Boston portrait artist John Singleton Copley, 27.
Japanese painter Harunobu Suzuki introduces color to ukiyoe painting and improves ukiyoe printmaking technique by assigning specific functions to specialized professionals. Suzuki specializes in painting beautiful women.
Popular songs: Mother Goose's Melodies, published by Boston printer Thomas Fleet, includes "Baa Baa Black Sheep," "Ding Dong Bell," "Georgie Porgie," "Hickory Dickory Dock," "Hot Cross Buns," "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing," "Jack and Jill," "Little Bo Peep," "Little Miss Muffet," "Little Tommy Tucker," "See-Saw Marjorie Daw," "Tom, Tom the Piper's Son," and other favorites sung years ago to his infant son by his late mother-in-law, Elizabeth Foster Goose, who died in 1757 at age 92. She had put old French tunes to the 1697 verses of Charles Perrault.
Kedleston Hall is completed three miles outside Derby in Derbyshire for Nathanial Curzon, 1st Lord Searsdale, whose family has lived on the site since the 12th century. Architects Matthew Brettingham, 66, and James Paine, 48, have designed the newest version of the garden and its 800 acres of gardens, young Robert Adam has designed its south-facing front and much of its interior with its vast marble hall and its coffer-domed salon.
Irish entrepreneur Richard Hennessy, 43, founds a firm for the purpose of exporting cognac brandy to his native County Cork, where it will find favor among the local gentry, who disdain the local whiskey (see Martel, 1715). According to some accounts, Hennessy came to France as an officer in the Irish Brigade and was wounded in 1745 at the Battle of Fontenoy, according to others he was exiled by British authorities for agitating against the crown and settled in the Charente region. His son James will become a French citizen, enlarge Richard's business, and form James Hennessy & Cie.
France's first public restaurant opens at Paris: the country has had inns that served food to overnight guests and taverns that emphasized drinking rather than eating, China and Japan have had eating places since the 13th century, but caterers (traiteurs) whose guild members sell cooked whole joints of meat, poultry, and stews (ragouts) have had a monopoly in France until now. A tavernkeeper named Boulanger defies the monopoly; at his Champ d'Oiseau tavern in the rue des Poulies (or rue Bailleul; accounts vary), Boulanger serves a "soup" made of mutton feet in a white sauce and calls it a divin restorante ("divine restorative"). The traiteurs sue, the case goes to the French parlement, Boulanger wins, and he gains the right to serve restorantes at his all-night place, whose menu he soon enlarges. Others will soon follow his example (see 1794).
Philadelphia's population reaches 25,000, becoming the second largest city in the British Empire after London. New York has 12,500, up from 5,000 in 1700 (see 1793).
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