Definition
George Grenville was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and King George III's prime minister from April 1763 to July 1765. He took office as Britain's national debt had nearly doubled during the Seven Years' War and Britain decided to keep about 10,000 regular soldiers in America. Grenville held that the colonists, who had gained the most from the war, should help pay for those troops, and his ministry passed the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Quartering Act of 1765. George III dismissed him in July 1765, before the Stamp Act took effect, and the next ministry repealed it in 1766.
Why it matters on the AP exam
Grenville's program is the clearest case of Britain ending salutary neglect and taxing the colonies for revenue. It fits the chain of causation that exam questions test: the war, then the debt, then new taxes and stricter enforcement, then colonial protest. A prompt that asks why Parliament began taxing the colonies after 1763 calls for his aims: to raise revenue, enforce the trade laws, and pay for the troops in America. Questions also contrast his direct stamp tax with the Townshend duties on imports that followed in 1767.
Connections
- Sugar Act: his first revenue law, passed in 1764
- Stamp Act: his direct tax on printed paper, passed in 1765
- Salutary neglect: his ministry replaced it with stricter enforcement of trade laws
- Virtual representation: his Treasury secretary, Thomas Whately, set out this argument in a 1765 pamphlet defending the Stamp Act