I had always assumed the seeds of the American Revolution began in the 1760s with the Leedstown Resolves in Westmoreland County, Virginia and soon thereafter with the Sons of Liberty in Boston, as a result of the Americans being "billed" for their share of the costs of the French and Indian War that started with the flare up by George Washington in May of 1754 at the Jumonville Glen incident .

Going through the Joseph Ball Letter book, I see this dissension started DURING the war itself. In a letter to his nephew Joseph Chinn, his agent in Virginia, but Ball himself then a resident of London, Joseph Ball goes into a political diatribe with his thoughts of the Virginians (and colonists in general). The letter is dated is 29 May 1755. It starts with the taxes and preparations being made in England proper, and sacrifices being made there (the Seven Years War had yet to be declared).

Joseph Ball writes:

"The People of Virginia are quite in the wrong to oppose the poll tax, or any other tax that is necessary;  Is it not better to exert themselves at first to stop the progress of their Enemies, than to be conquered, and abused like slaves. sure they are bewitched. They cannot reasonably expect, that the burthen of of the War should be born by the Mother Country, and not to be burthened themselves, to save their own Estates and Persons. Stupid and unreasonable to the last Degree!"

Well, we see here where this was headed.

I throw this out there to learn more about the brewing tensions between the colonists and the mother country DURING the French and Indian war. (if not before).

Craig

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