Charles James Fox Quotes
The gentleman asks, When were the colonies emancipated? I desire to know when they were made slaves? The profit to Great Britain from the trade of her colonies, through all its branches, is two millions a year. This is the price that America pays you for your protection;
See {641497} for a quote from the Grenville speech. Fox, a conservative on most issues was an absolute radical on the issue of America. To aggravate the hawks in parliament, he used to dress in the colors of George Washington’s uniform to show his support once the war broke out.
Charles James Fox, 1749-1806, British Lord of the Treasury & Foreign Minister (Whig), Reply to George Grenville in the Parliamentary Debate Over America
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This is the same man who introduced the Stamp Act 12 years before which started the whole problem in America. See {74956}.
The Parliament was debating the reaction to the Stamp Act by the American Colonies. One of the members, reflecting a majority view, asked sarcastically when the American Colonies had been emancipated so that they could make their own independent decisions. Pitt then hit this one out of the park by reversing the question.
At the beginning of the dispute between America and England, the issue was the raising of internal American taxes by Parliament without any American representation in Parliament. The issue escalated and when the British began using force, independence then became the American objective.
This resolution was the trigger that began the debate which became the Declaration of Independence.
Ministers refers to the Government Ministers, not to clergy.
The fear of civil war amongst the colonies if they were free from Britain was substantial. There were a number of potential conflict flash points of which slavery was one. See {619100}
The fear of civil war amongst the colonies if they were free from Britain was substantial.
This was written more than a year before the American Revolution Battles began. It took time to ship the men and supplies to America and the British did not handle that task with much efficiency. See {636926} for another of the King’s statements.
While the official battles of the American Revolution did not begin until 1776, parts of the American colonies were in a de facto state of rebellion and the British could not enforce their laws. See {636925} for another of the King’s statements.
Fox was one of the opposition leaders who were opposed to the heavy handed policies that the British King and Government had used.
The did not listen to Pitt or others counseling moderation and ignoring the American acts of protest. Instead, the hawks sent armed troops and war broke out in earnest and the American Revolution reached the point of no return. Lord Chatham was furious at the incompetent handling of the situation by the government and he let them know it—see {641505} .
This letter drafted by Adams was sent by the Congress complaining about the Closing of Boston Harbor. The letter was right about the consequences except for the last; the rift between American and the mother country was not only healed but there is no European nation that has been closer to the United States over the years.
The British had closed Boston Harbor until the English merchants who lost their goods at the Boston Tea Party were paid for their damages. A convention was called to discuss a response to the closing of Boston Harbor and New York City convened a public meeting to come up with instructions for their delegates to the conference. One amazing thing was that they advocated a boycott of English goods. What was amazing was that there was no nation and New York and Massachusetts were separate entities and sectionalism was rife, yet New Yorkers were willing to sacrifice to help Bostonians. The New York sacrifice was all the greater because most of the imports from England landed at New York harbor where there was work created for New Yorkers and business for New York companies. New York stood to lose the most with a boycott. Philadelphia which also advocated a boycott, lost little as they were not a harbor for imports. New Yorkers also provided assistance to their competitors, the Bostonians who were out of work. See {589413}.
This resolution of independence was voted upon a month before the Declaration of Independence. It was approved by 12 of the colonies but not by New York. The Congress appointed a committee to draft what became the Declaration of Independence and that was approved by all the colonies. The resolution was introduced by Richard Henry Lee on instructions from Virginia. The graphic is of Lee’s original notes.
Hopkins was complaining about the fact that England could tax the colonies and thereby take their property without their consent made the American colonists in the “miserable condition of slaves.” Essentially the fundamental complaint of the Americans was this and in a decade it would erupt as the American Revolution. At the same time, Hopkins was a slave owner and yet saw nothing wrong with that.
Americans were by no means united in wanting to take up arms against Britain. Relatively few of the loyalist quotations have come down to us, but here is one. It also illustrates why some Americans wanted complete independence: So that they could escape their debts to English merchants. Most however had more noble and unselfish motives. As a matter of fact, the American Revolution is unusual in the sense that there were so many men of substance who sacrificed much of their material wealth for the American ideal. There were also the rogues and opportunists as Galloway describes.
This was one of the first and is considered the best of the Colonial writings against taxation without representation. Despite this, Dulany is not well known in American history because when the Revolution finally came he was a loyalist.
The message was conveyed by the Secretary of State, Sir George Calvert (Lord Baltimore). Parliament and the British King were jockeying for position in their relative powers. King James took the position that Parliament could NOT make laws that affected the American Colonies. Parliament disagreed. Later, some of the American patriots would use this quotation to claim that they were only subject to the King and not to Parliament. For related quotes on the King/Parliament issue, see {639144}, {639143}, {639142}, {639141}, {639140}, & {639137}
- Born: January 24, 1749
- Died: September 13, 1806
- Nationality: English
- Profession: Politician
Charles James Fox, styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-rival of the Tory politician William Pitt the Younger; his father Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, a leading Whig of his day, had similarly been the great rival of Pitt's famous father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ("Pitt the Elder").
