57. Sons of Liberty

The British government of the 1760s couldn’t complain that nobody had warned it of the catastrophic consequences of trying to inflict taxes on the American colonists, without their consent. 'American' was increasingly the right word for them, as various forces, including non-English immigration, began to change the nature of the population.

Even so, they remained for the most part wedded to their British roots. Their anger at the government’s behaviour wasn’t just a rejection of British highhandedness. On the contrary, many of them spoke out as Brits against Britain’s trampling on long-established British rights they saw themselves as defending.

It wasn’t just the American-British of the colonies speaking out. There were voices in Britain itself defending their cause. One of the more remarkable was that of self-made soldier and MP, Isaac Barré.

An interesting man to get to know, as we do in this episode.

Illustration: Portrait of a passionate spokesman for the American colonists: Isaac Barré by Gilbert Stuart, ca 1785.
National Portrait Gallery 1191

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License