1770 - Political Events

Political Events

New York's Battle of Golden Hill January 19 and 20 brings the first bloodshed between British troops and American colonists. The Sons of Liberty have put up a series of Liberty poles with pennants bearing slogans, the redcoats have torn them down, and when they tear down the fourth pole on the common west of Golden Hill two Sons of Liberty seize two soldiers. The soldiers resist, more citizens arrive with clubs, the officer in charge orders his men back to quarters, but a second skirmish occurs the following day.

Britain's Grafton ministry resigns in January (Lord Grafton has been vilified for his womanizing and obsession with horseracing). A new Tory ministry headed by Frederick North, 8th Lord North, 38, takes office February 10 and will rule until early 1782 with Lord North serving as first lord of the treasury in addition to his duties as prime minister.

The Boston "Massacre" March 5 leaves three dead, two mortally wounded, and six injured following a disturbance between colonists and British troops. A mob of colonists has gone to the Customs House and thrown snowballs, some of them containing stones; one British soldier fell, accidentally firing his musket, his companions thought that they had been fired upon and opened fire on the mob, and agitator Samuel Adams rushes to his silversmith friend Paul Revere, 35, with the request that Revere produce an etching that will stir passions against those responsible for the "massacre." As acting governor of the British North American Province of Massachusetts Bay, Thomas Hutchinson further antagonizes colonists by administering the full measure of law (see Stamp Act, 1765); local lawyers John Adams, now 35, and Josiah Quincy, 26, defend the British captain and his men, who fired on the Americans; a jury finds the defendants guilty only on minor charges and none is jailed, but agitators use the incident to arouse colonial rancor against British troops. Hutchinson will be appointed royal governor next year and hold the position until 1774 (see "Boston Tea Party," 1773).

Boston Massacre
Silversmith Paul Revere's exaggerated depiction of the Boston "Massacre" stirred passions against the British. (© Bettmann/Corbis.)

Parliament repeals the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 in a bill passed April 12. Prime Minister North has used his influence to have the act repealed.

The British secretary of state for the colonies appoints Scottish peer John Murray, 38, 4th earl of Dunmore, governor of the New York colony (see 1771).

North Carolina Regulators numbering about 150 break into a superior court at Hillsborough in September (see 1768). Armed with sticks and switches, they force the judge the leave the bench, attack a lawyer and administer a beating, drag an assistant attorney general through the streets, and commit further acts of violence (see 1771).

Former Virginia lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie dies at Clifton, Bristol, July 27 at age 77, having lived in virtual retirement since early in 1758; former prime minister George Grenville dies at London November 13 at age 58.

Marie Antoinette marries the tall, boorish, 15-year-old French dauphin Louis Auguste at Versailles May 16. The Austrian empress Maria Theresa succeeds in uniting the Hapsburg and Bourbon families through the arranged marriage of her youngest daughter, but the French court derides the adolescent, poorly educated 14-year-old princess as "the Austrian" and finds her ill-prepared to be the wife of Louis XV's grandson, who pays little attention to her (see 1774).

The Battle of Chesme July 6 and 7 ends in defeat for an Ottoman fleet on the Aegean Sea as war continues between the Turks and Russia. A Russian fleet has come to the Anatolian coast from the Baltic under the command of Aleksei Orlov and British officers with the intention of destroying Turkish ships and fomenting rebellion among the Greeks in the Peloponnesus (the Morea), the Russians fail to coordinate their operations with those of the rebel Greeks, and Orlov lacks the ground forces needed to force the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, but he does succeed in burning the Ottoman fleet (see Crimea, 1771).

Bengal's puppet nabob Saif-ud-Doula dies in a smallpox epidemic at Murshidad after a 4-year reign and is succeeded by another son of the late Mir Jafar, who is placed on the throne by British East India Company at age 17 and will reign until his death in 1793 as Mubarak-ud-Doula (see Warren Hastings, 1772).