1754 - Political Events

Political Events

Britain's prime minister Henry Pelham dies at London March 6 at age 58. His brother Thomas Pelham-Holles, 60, 1st duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, takes his place. One of the nation's richest Whig landowners, the new prime minister has holdings in 12 counties and a yearly rental income of nearly £40,000. He has been secretary of state for the past 30 years.

London-born malt distiller's son John Wilkes, 28, stands for election to Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed but fails, although he has bribed a seacaptain to land a party of opposition voters in Norway rather than at Berwick. A profligate who married an heiress in May 1747, Wilkes participates in the secret Knights of St. Francis of Wycombe, founded 2 years ago by the profligate courtier Sir Francis Dashwood, now 46, 2nd Baronet Dashwood, who inherited his title and fortune at age 16 and whose group is known as "The Hell-Fire Club" or the "Mad Monks of Medmenham" because it is said to conduct obscene parodies of Roman Catholic rituals and engage in debauchery in the Gothic "ruins" of Medmenham Abbey, built for the purpose in Buckinghamshire between London and Oxford (other members include John Montagu, 4th earl of Sandwich, artist William Hogarth, and prominent poets; see Wilkes, 1757).

Paris recalls colonial administrator Joseph François Dupleix, now 57, from India after a 12-year career as governor general of all French possessions in the subcontinent. The British are left in firm control (see 1760).

The Mughal emperor Ahmad Shah is blinded and deposed at Delhi by his vizier Imad ul-Mulk Ghazi-ud-Din and some Maratha cohorts after a 6-year reign in which he has allowed the Afghan chief Ahmad Shah Durrani to plunder northwest India on two occasions, permitted the Afghan to extort lands and money from him, and fled a demonstration by the Marathas at Sikanderabad, abandoning the women of his family to captivity. The hapless Ahmad Shah is replaced by Aziz-ud-din Alamgir II, a son of the late Jahandar Shah, who will reign until 1759 as Alamgir II (but see 1757).

The Ottoman sultan Mahmud I dismounts from his horse at Constantinople December 13 and drops dead at age 60. His 55-year-old brother inherits the throne and will reign until 1757 as Osman III.

French troops rout a force of Virginia frontiersmen building a fort at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers April 17, defeating a small British colonial expeditionary force led by George Washington (see 1753). Now 22, Colonel Washington subsequently ambushes a small unit of Frenchmen under the command of Ensign Joseph de Jumonville, who is wounded but approaches Washington with an official-looking document. Washington looks over his shoulder to summon his translator, whereupon the Iroquois "Half King" Tanaghrisson who has guided the Virginians cries, "Tu n'est pas encore mort, mon père" ("Thou are not yet dead, my father") and bashes in Jumonville's skull with a hatchet (he reaches into the skull, takes out a handful of brains, and washes his hands in the gore). Jumonville's document turns out to be an ultimatum to the British to keep out of the Ohio country, that being the property of "His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XV"). The French and their Indian allies defeat Washington again July 3 near a stockade called Fort Necessity in the Ohio Valley, wiping out a third of his Virginia Regiment; they force him to surrender and erect Fort Duquesne at the head of the Ohio River, hoping to confine the British to the area east of the Appalachians while they build a Gallic empire in the lands to the west (see Braddock, 1755).

The Albany Convention June 19 assembles representatives of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the New England colonies in a meeting with chiefs of the Six (Iroquois) Nations in order to work out a joint plan of defense by Iroquois and British colonial forces against the advances of the French. Lincolnshire-born Cambridge graduate Thomas Pownall, 32, arrived at New York in October of last year as secretary to Sir Danvers Osborn, who had been sent by his brother-in-law Lord Halifax to serve as governor of New York but committed suicide 2 days after taking office, depressed by the recent death of his wife. Having formed friendships with Benjamin Franklin, James De Lancey, Sir William Johnson, and other prominent men, Pownall presents a memorandum at Albany pointing out the importance of British control of the Great Lakes (see Pownall, 1757). Adopting a proposal by Benjamin Franklin, the convention issues a call July 10 for voluntary union of the 13 British colonies.

Image Pop-Up

Benjamin Franklin's cartoon of May 1754 was more than 20 years premature. Colonial governments spurned his advice.