In 1760 the future looks bright for a twenty-two-year-old young man who is crowned King George III of Great Britain and Ireland. Great Britain is on the victorious side of a war that stretches across the world from the European continent to the Americas, Africa, and India. In North America, the British have invaded Canada and French forces are on the road to defeat. Soon the Iroquois allies of the French will sign a peace treaty with Great Britain. The Following year George will marry seventeen-year-old Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz at the Royal Chapel in St. James’s Palace, London. By 1762 the Anglo-Cherokee war will be ended, following which a Cherokee delegation will visit that same young king in London, England.

In November 1761, Henry Timberlake, an ensign from Virginia, led a diplomatic journey down the Holston and up the Little Tennessee Rivers to the towns of the Overhill Cherokees. The remarkably accurate map Timberlake compiled was the first printed map of any part of Tennessee taken from an actual survey. After spending three months with the Cherokees, Timberlake traveled to Williamsburg, accompanied by about seventy-two Indians. One of them approached Governor Francis Fauquier about going to London to meet the king. Eventually it was decided that three of the Cherokees, an interpreter, and Timberlake would make the journey in 1762. Black and white line engraving “The Three Cherokees, come over from the head of the River Savanna to London, 1762.” Engraved by George Bickham.

By 1750, the commissioners of the Board of Trade recognized the need for a comprehensive map that illustrated all of Britain’s American holdings and counteracted French claims. John Mitchell was given access to all of the maps, charts, journals, and reports belonging to the Board of Trade as well as the records of the British Admiralty. Attempting to prevail over French claims, Mitchell meticulously researched the original charters of each of the colonies and included his findings on the map. His work was immediately recognized for the political assertions it made on Britain’s behalf and helped to galvanize public sentiment in favor of defending British holdings during the Seven Years' War. Following the Revolutionary War, treaty negotiators used Mitchell’s map to establish the boundaries of the new United States. Cartographer John Mitchell, engraved by Thomas Kitchin.

For the past nine years Parliament has been spending vast sums on a war that began on the American continent and spread across the world, becoming known as the Seven Years War. Now the British army has defeated the French in North America, which means the British Crown has increased its territory to almost the entire eastern third of the continent. This also means the country is broke. To help the country out of this situation, British Prime Minister Lord Bute institutes a tax on cider production in Britain, resulting in outrage and riots. Parliament also asks her British colonists to help pay for the protection of the newly acquired territories in America. Because the money was to be spent in America, Parliament sees no problem with Americans paying for this. Parliament plans to pass several acts to make colonists pay an extra tax to support their defense. For the colonists it marks a violation of their right as English subjects to be taxed only with their consent. It is the first of a chain of events that leads to American independence from Parliament—although at this stage no one foresees the consequences of these actions.

Cunne Shote, or Cummacatogue, was one of the three Cherokees escorted to London in 1762 by Henry Timberlake. He was the center figure pictured in the print of the three Cherokees. While they were in London, Cunne Shote also sat for an individual portrait that was subsequently engraved in mezzotint. The combination of English and Native clothing and accoutrements was meant to suggest the harmonious unity between cultures. The medals that he wore around his neck were both struck in 1761 to commemorate the marriage of George III and Charlotte. He also wears a silver gorget with the initials “GR III.” The most striking aspect of the portrait however is the forceful grip that he has on the scalping knife - a clear visual reminder of the tenuous relationship between the Cherokees and the English and Europeans living in the South. Black and white mezzotint “Cunne Shote, the Indian CHIEF, A great Warrior of the Cherokee Nation.” Engraved by James McArdell after the painting by Francis Parsons.

This satirical print shows the ending of the Seven Years' War with the Treaty of Paris. Seated at a table debating the affair are three leaders involved in the Peace of Paris. With the Devil as an accomplice, fox-headed Lord Holland (Henry Fox), sits behind a book labeled “Un-ac[counte].d Millions.” The Duke of Bedford contemplates four scrolls representing the “West Indies,” “North America,” “Manillas,”, and “Neg. 150,000.” The Earl of Bute, in the middle, places one hand on the tip of a pen held by Holland in a symbolic gesture of support. The scene is in an interior of a room. The Devil holds ink for Lord Holland’s use and a beheading axe; a goose is slung over the shoulder of Lord Holland. From under the table emerges a dog looking at the duke. Black and white line engraving, 1769.

In Parliament, George Grenville announces the intention to renew the 1733 Sugar and Molasses Act by instituting the American Revenue Act. The act taxes sugar in an attempt to raise money to protect the colonies and to curb smuggling of sugar and molasses, but the action prompts protests in America instead. Another act, the Currency Act, is also extended, this time in an attempt to regulate paper money in the colonies. It too is quickly protested, and calls are soon made for its repeal. These acts steadily sensitize the colonies to future Parliamentary actions. Grenville’s proposals are direct taxes levied on everyday items. American colonists feel their rights have been trampled upon. When petitions are sent to Parliament from the American colonies, Parliament is perplexed by the colonists’ response. When the time comes, they will be prepared to protest the Stamp Act before it is even introduced.

During the colonial period, without banks and investment houses as we know them, people kept their wealth in physical form, such as salable goods, silver plate, and real estate. Samuel Cornell, a New Bern, NC, merchant, clearly followed this custom, but he still had available capital and he chose one of the most risky investment vehicles available during the period: he speculated in the paper money of the colony. In short, he was hoping to make a killing by buying large quantities of North Carolina “Proclamation Money” (either with goods, real estate, or gold and silver) when its value was depreciated, and then divesting himself of the cash during an upswing in the paper’s value. Cornell’s speculation turned out to be a very bad deal. As a staunch Loyalist, Cornell left New Bern for London in August 1775, where he remained until he returned to British-occupied New York City in the spring of 1777. He never saw the end of the war, dying in New York on June 14, 1781, in his fiftieth year. His will, dated February 24, 1781, left most of his wealth, and his by-then worthless hoard of North Carolina paper money, to his daughters. Remaining with Cornell’s heirs until the early twentieth century, the hoard was given to a prominent New York institution, which sold it during the 1970s. Colonial Williamsburg’s portion of the hoard amounts to slightly less than half of Cornell’s assemblage, and represents about 4% of North Carolina’s total output of paper money during the period covered by the hoard. North Carolina paper money spanning six different emissions from 1748 through 1771. What you see here was worth more than £7000 at the time. If you took all the pieces of paper in this collection and stretched them end to end, you would make a paper strip long enough to go from the Capitol Building all the way to Chowning’s Tavern.

Parliament passes a further act that is to come into effect the following November. The Stamp Act is a tax on paper products like playing cards. Virginians are outraged because Parliament is continuing to attempt to legislate a tax without consulting them. Virginians are used to taxing themselves through their own local representatives in Williamsburg’s House of Burgesses — not by a Parliament reaching into their pockets from across the ocean. The tax will set a precedent in a legal system driven by precedents, and while it might seem to be a small tax for the gentry, for less wealthy it is a significant burden United in their protests, colonists from Boston, MA to Savannah, GA bully their respective stamp collectors into not commencing their duties. Only in Georgia is the stamp collector able to distribute the stamped papers, but he is forced to flee shortly afterwards.

In the second half of the eighteenth-century there were several makers of playing cards. The cards were printed on sheets of paper, cut out, and then wrapped in paper. Some makers marked at least one of the cards with their name. Some included their name on the wrapper. This set of cards has the maker’s name — Gibson — on the lower portion of the wrapper. Also printed on the wrapper is a warning: “£10 penalty selling any Playing Cards unlabeled. £20 penalty selling or Buying any Label or Wrapper used before.” In the second half of the eighteenth-century there were several makers of playing cards. The cards were printed on sheets of paper, cut out, and then wrapped in paper. Some makers marked at least one of the cards with their name. Some included their name on the wrapper. This set of cards has the maker’s name — Gibson — on the lower portion of the wrapper. Also printed on the wrapper is a warning: “£10 penalty selling any Playing Cards unlabeled. £20 penalty selling or Buying any Label or Wrapper used before.”

It’s Patrick Henry’s birthday. Two months after the Stamp Act was passed in Parliament, Henry presents his provocative views on it at a meeting of Virginia’s House of Burgesses in Williamsburg, VA. Henry argues that colonists hold the same rights as the people of Great Britain, especially the right to only be taxed by their local representatives. When shocked representatives suggest some of his ideas amount to treason, he utters words that will become history, shouting, “If this be treason, make the most of it!” These “Stamp Act Resolves” are presented to the House of Burgesses for approval. They will be sent to England along with other grievances of the burgesses for the British government to see and consider a repeal. Henry presents in total seven resolutions, laying out his opposition to the tax, and four are accepted. Although they were not written for public consumption, selections of Henry’s fiery rhetoric begin to be published widely in newspapers throughout the colonies. Patrick Henry’s words are joined by propaganda, satire, slogans, and songs. A tax with obscure legislative roots has become a major barrier to good relations between Britain and its colonies in North America.

Considering Patrick Henry’s immense stature as a Revolutionary statesman and orator, including his notability as Virginia’s first elected governor, surprisingly few life portraits were made of him. Least well known is a series of quick sketches executed in 1797 by Benjamin Latrobe. The only other images credibly taken from life are two miniatures, one done by an unidentified artist, the other in 1795 by Lawrence Sully (1769–1804). The last was used by Lawrence’s brother, Thomas, as a guide in creating the full-scale oil now owned by Colonial Williamsburg. Thomas Sully relied heavily on his brother’s miniature without slavishly copying it. In order to achieve the desired overall size as well as appropriate proportions and formatting, he added the major portion of Henry’s torso and greatcoat. More insightfully, he altered the direction and focus of Henry’s gaze and added spectacles to the top of his head. Far less obvious are “slight alterations to the wig,” which Henry’s grandson claimed were suggested by Chief Justice John Marshall. Thomas’s typical loose, slashing brushwork also distinguishes his large oil from his brother’s more minutely detailed and painstakingly executed miniature. The result is a portrait that Henry’s wife and children called “the best likeness they ever saw” of Henry. (In an ironic twist of fate, one of Henry's sons later denounced Lawrence’s life miniature as “indifferent”). Originally, Colonial Williamsburg’s painting was commissioned from Thomas Sully by William Wirt (1772–1834), Henry’s admirer and biographer whose Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry initially appeared in 1817, bearing as its frontispiece an engraving after this likeness. In Sully’s manuscript list of completed paintings, he noted that he began work on this, his first Henry portrait, on November 11, 1815, finishing it the following November 20, and charging Wirt $100 for the effort. Oil on canvas, Thomas Sully, 1815, after the miniature by Lawrence Sully.

Merchants and gentry from across Virginia are meeting to do business in Williamsburg. They have been inflamed by the news of the Stamp Act. A crowd begins harassing a man as he walks from the direction of the Capitol down Duke of Gloucester Street. The group surrounds him, demanding to know if he will be commissioner in charge of introducing the Stamp Act in Virginia. He attempts to delay a response, saying he will answer them on Friday at ten o’clock once he has met with the colony’s royal governor. The mob is loud, it grows as it moves, and further demands are made of the man. The man didn’t know it, but another angry mob had just last month been organized to burn an effigy of him outside a courthouse about seventy miles north in Westmoreland. The man is Virginia-born George Mercer. Once a respected aide-de-camp to George Washington in the Seven Years' War, now he has recently been appointed government stamp tax collector for all of Virginia and Maryland. His is a figure of disdain.

"The Next Disagreeable Thing" program performed at the opening of Richard Charlton’s Coffeehouse, November 20, 2009. A reenactment of the event that occurred on October 30, 1765, when tax collector George Mercer was attacked outside the coffeehouse by an angry mob, and rescued by Lt. Gov. Fauquier, witness to the event from the front porch. Interpreters (left to right): Robert Weathers as George Johnston, Todd Norris as George Mercer, Kevin Ernst as John Fleming, and Scott Green.

The British Parliament realizes its mistake and repeals the Stamp Act, but the damage is done. The effect of the act was to spur colonists to discover they have the power to unite against Parliament. Boycotts, “tea parties,” and slogans, and propaganda spreads through the colonies in newspapers and songs. Parliament has a different take on the repeal, passing the Declaratory Act, which states that it is still authorized to directly tax its colonies. After the repeal of the Stamp Act many colonists ignore the Declaratory Act, feeling the crisis is over and things can now go back to normal.

The creamware teapots made to commemorate the repeal of the Stamp Act are decorated primarily with both “No Stamp Act” and “America Liberty Restored” supporting the conclusion that they were manufactured after the act was repealed, rather than made in protest of the act itself. Colonial Williamsburg’s teapot is inscribed “No Stamp Act” on both sides of the pot, but it so closely relates to the other known examples that it seems likely that it too was produced after March 1766. Not only does it seem likely that these wares were made for the American market, but they were in fact here as evidenced by the inventory of James Brown, a tobacco factor and merchant in Piscataway, Maryland. His inventory lists two coffeepots, four teapots, three jugs, and three pint jugs all with an “Enamel'd No Stamp Act” motif. In 1771, the inventory of Brown's successor, Alexander Hamilton, still included two jugs decorated with the Stamp Act motif. Today the only known surviving “No Stamp Act” ceramics are teapots.

Hanoverian-pattern silver tablespoon with up-turned spatulate handle with slight midrib and oval bowl with long oval back drop. This spoon is from an original set of twelve that Landon Carter (1710–1778) of Sabine Hall, Richmond County, Virginia, ordered through his factors in London in 1766. It was engraved, like the others in the set, at his direction in celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act in that year. The back of each handle is inscribed “LC / 1766 / REPEAL OF THE AMERICAN / Stamp Act.” The spoons bear the mark of Thomas and William Chawner, who were specialist flatware makers. Carter had been a leader in the protest of the Stamp Act and was proud of his early advocacy for representation in the presence of taxation.

While the popularity of political buttons was immense during the last half of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, they had been around for some time. This slogan-bearing example, produced to display disdain for the Stamp Act of 1765, may be the first American political button of any sort. William Pitt, known as the “Great Commoner,” was greatly admired in the American colonies after his successful argument for the repeal of the much-hated act. Almost immediately, commemorative objects praising him began to appear, from inscribed teapots to a wide array of medals and buttons. Its crude execution and that fact that these extremely rare buttons don’t turn up in Britain suggest that they are American made. With only a handful of others known, all of which are ground finds from Maryland and Massachusetts, this example seems to be the sole undug example.

A funeral procession composed of supporters of the Stamp Act carries a small coffin containing the remains of the bill toward an open vault, appropriately adorned with two skulls. It has been prepared for the interment of all unjust acts that would alienate Englishmen. Leading the cortege and preparing to deliver the funeral eulogy is the Reverend W. Scott, who is followed by the mourners: Grenville carrying the coffin, Bute, Bedford, and Temple. By setting the action on the dock, Wilson is able to depict the large unshipped cargoes destined for America that accumulated during the period when the act was in force. Ships labeled “Conway”, “Rockingham”, and “Grafton” that representing Whig leaders responsible for the repeal of the bill, now stand ready to carry goods. Stamps just returned from America are stacked on the warf. One crate contains a statue of William Pitt, another English leader responsible for the repeal. Black and white line engraving and etching attributed to Benjamin Wilson.

In 1767, another act, this time called the Townshend Act, is proposed by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townsend. It attempts to collect taxes on tea, glass, lead, paint, and paper. John Dickinson, sometimes called “The Penman of the American Revolution,” publishes his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. These simply worded and concise editorials help to reignite the the tax protesters’ cause by suggesting the tax was not regulatory, but simply to raise revenue. Unrest was soon to follow. In the coming years, the events that began as noisy tax protests in the 1760s, would change their tone to calls for armed revolt.