1776—War Financing Crisis

America had been in and out of major wars since the 1740s, but seeking its independence by going to war with Great Britain created special economic problems for the colonies. Because Great Britain was the main holder of colonial debts, war with Britain would relieve some debt problems for the colonies; however, the colonies themselves lacked gold and silver to print their own specie-backed currency. The war would also cause America to lose its main trading partner, Great Britain.War would require money to purchase key war materials such as gunpowder. As in past conflicts, American factories could be ramped up to manufacture some war materials, but not everyone supported the war. Furthermore, some merchants, traders, manufacturers, and businesses were suspicious of paper money after the inflationary problems of the 1740s, 1750s, and 1760s. They were leery of beginning to produce war material only to be paid with worthless currency.

The American Revolution would be as much a financial crisis as a political conflict, and victory would be as much financial as military. The colonists, how-ever, realized that continued economic ties with Britain provided no better future either. They came to realize that it was time for economic freedom as much as political freedom. Not surprisingly, the northern urban centers and the southern plantation owners were the centers of support for revolution as they had been the most negatively affected by the British mercantilism that had harmed and constricted the colonial economy for decades.By 1774, the die of war was cast. British soldiers were in the colonies enforcing oppressive regulations and acts of Parliament. 

The colonists were organizing a boycott, and the British were blockading major ports. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. A major boycott was being planned; but before that, merchants such as Robert Morris of Philadelphia sent many ships filled with flour to Europe to obtain goods and establish credit before the fighting began. Credit had already been tightened in anticipation of a major conflict with Great Britain.Congress formed the Committee of Safety and filled it with prominent merchants. The committee’s first assignment was to arm 4,500 soldiers. The most critical need was gunpowder, and Robert Morris was given the first government contract. Fulfilling the contract was a high-risk investment of Morris’s ships but the profit would be more than 30 percent, high enough that one shipment could pay for the loss of two or three shipments. American merchants like Morris would find war to be profitable. 

Morris was able to establish a European trade that had gun-powder, cannon, and arms flowing into America before the Declaration of 1776. Congress started to print continental dollars and to let contracts for war materiel. The public lacked confidence in paper money, but there was little silver or gold available for Congress to use in the fight.

In late 1775, Robert Morris was a key member of many congressional committees and had procurement responsibilities for the Congress. Many in Congress were upset with the profit margins of the merchants, but these profits brought victory by giving merchants the incentive to risk their money and property against the British navy. British blockades began in 1776 as the war officially started. 

Benjamin Franklin was able to get a secret credit deal from France that would prove critical to the American war effort.Morris established a trading network throughout Europe and the colonies. He had, for example, been given sole responsibility for the Virginia tobacco trade. American ships were also sailing in search of British ships to capture for their cargo and money. The economics of war often received little attention but the America victory depended on it. Morris’s network supplied the muskets, gunpowder, blankets, lead, and money to support Washington’s famous Christmas Eve crossing of the Delaware to defeat the Hessians. 

During this campaign, the enlistment period was up for many of Washington’s soldiers, and they were due to return to their homes in the next few days. Washington offered a $10 bounty for soldiers to sign up for another year. Morris was able to collect the necessary funds in coin to hold on to the soldiers.It would be a long war and would involve a string of financial ups and downs. Congress considered imposing new taxes to support the war, but that was politically impossible as the war was being waged over British taxes. In 1777, Congress, hoping to borrow money to help pay for the war, approved the issuance of $5 mil-lion in certificates paying 4 percent. There was a lot of competition with individual states, which were issuing their own certificates at the 4 percent rate. The bonds found few takers until Congress raised the interest rate to 6 percent. Still, by the end of 1777, more French loans were needed to pay for the war. 

Morris set up an informal bank that sold six-month certificates, and the bank would circulate paper notes to be used as currency. This bank was successful with providing credit for merchants, who preferred bank notes to Continental dollars.As 1780 approached, all forms of paper money that had been issued were highly inflated. The state of circulating currency was a mass of state-issued paper, Continental dollars, and some interest-bearing bank notes. The crisis peaked in 1781 when 10 regiments of Pennsylvania soldiers, tired of the lack of supplies and pay, marched on Congress. This was not an isolated rebellion but was the largest to directly threaten Congress. Congress was printing money to pay for the war with no formal agreement between the individual states to back the money—that is, to accept the responsibility to pay back the debts after the war. Congress decided that the currency and the war financing required central control, and Robert Morris was named superintendent of finance. 

The need for unity in taking responsibility for the war spending ultimately resulted in the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.Morris founded a private national bank to issue currency backed by silver and gold. The idea was to attract patriotic investors and French support. Most important, Morris used the bank as a central bank to control the value of the currency. Under the bank, all states would share the war debt. However, Morris planned to use poll taxes, import taxes, excise taxes, and land taxes to pay off the debt. He used a 6 percent interest rate to attract foreign money. Morris also aggressively sold grain to Spain for gold and silver to back his new bank. Many critics looked at Morris as a financial alchemist and could not understand why he was buying back Continental dollars and bank paper while limiting new money. The French were still giving loans to the colonies because manufacturing gunpowder and other war supplies had created an economic boom for them, and France’s earlier investments required them to stay for the long haul or lose everything.Morris also proved creative in saving money on supplies for the army. 

He replaced an elaborate system of government agents and army supply officers with contractors who became responsible for collecting and delivering supplies to the army. This also allowed the army to put more troops in the fight. The use of con-tractors was years ahead of its time, but the system worked extremely well in the north. Merchants lined up to bid on contracts at the rate of 10 cents per soldier per day. If supplies were captured by the enemy, the government would cover the loss. The concept would come to be frowned on by the professional armies of Europe, however, because of the lack of control over contractors. The idea would be resurrected by the Bush administration during the Iraq War. The problem of pay, how-ever, was not to be resolved for over a decade. 

George Washington had spent years begging soldiers to stay on with little money available for pay. Some of these soldiers still had worthless paper dollars from the French and Indian War. The average soldier was patriotic but the soldiers were also farmers and laborers with families to feed. The years of fighting had taken their toll, and although a military end was in site, inflation and a lack of hard cash were big obstacles to success. 

Even Washington’s ultimately successful southern campaign to Yorktown was in jeopardy for lack of funds. But the arrival of the French fleet not only brought troops but also kegs of silver coins for the soldiers’ pay.

The American victory at Yorktown brought money from Holland—the first major loan outside of France. The financial work of Robert Morris had been behind the ultimate American victory, but it would take another 10 years to settle the debt created. The pattern of war, boom, inflation, peace, and recession that had been seen in the past was repeated during the Revolutionary War period and would be repeated in the future.

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1772—Credit Crisis

By early 1770, the colonies, led by new manufacturing and trade, were coming out of the depression of the 1760s. Great Britain and Europe, however, were facing their own financial crisis as the new boom in trade created a credit bubble. Scottish and British banks had begun expanding credit starting in 1770. Once again, this was accompanied by over speculation in trading stock companies. The printing of paper money not backed by gold or silver created a European bubble, which when it burst caused failures of major banks throughout Europe and stock market crashes in London, Amsterdam, and Paris. The key colonial trading company, the East India Company, defaulted in 1772 as well. Britain once again looked to resolve the problem by monopolizing trade with and levying additional taxes on the colonies. Although the banks managed to stabilize the situation, the penalties on America stopped the expansion of the colonial economy. These new taxes and regulations such as the Tea Act would lead to the American Revolutionary War.

The credit crisis of 1772 followed the typical boom-bust cycle that has been common throughout the history of the United States. The period from 1770 to 1772 was one of boom and growth. The repeal of the Townshend Act opened up trade after the trade restrictions and colonial boycotts of the 1760s. In response to the pent-up demand, a flood of British goods was shipped to the colonies between 1770 and 1772. In return, crop failures in Europe also created huge demand for corn and wheat from the colonies. Tobacco also boomed during the period, hitting new highs in shipments. European banks eased credit to support this increase in trade, in particular Scottish banks that wanted to support the growth of Scottish merchants. Scottish merchants had made Glasgow a key trading point for American agricultural products, and the colonists could get cash and credit by trading with these middlemen. Great Britain, in contrast, still preferred to deal in reciprocal trade of tobacco for British goods. However, by 1770, many planters did not need large amounts of imported goods from Great Britain and preferred cash or notes of credit.

The old plantation trade system was breaking down because the value of the tobacco the colonies sold was greater than the value of the reciprocal goods offered in exchange by the British government. Tobacco planters wanted the cash equivalents offered by going directly to British merchants or Scottish agents, bypassing government agents. To support this change, British banks increased credit to European merchants. Paper money issued on the European side increased dramatically by 1772. The Ayr Bank of Scotland was founded in 1769 to liberalize credit with Scottish traders and merchants, and by 1772, it had almost two-thirds of the capital of Scotland. The increased number of paper bills of credit were also shared with, or sold to, London banks. The approach was very similar to the way American banks bundled credits for sale to other banks in the 2009 U.S. credit crisis. Speculation in the bank notes took off from 1770 to 1772.

At the end of 1771, traders and merchants were concerned about a commodity glut. American agents were reporting overstocks of tobacco that had been shipped from the colonies. The bubble burst when a major London bank, the Fordyce Bank, which dealt with the Ayr Bank, collapsed on June 8, 1772. The failure touched off a number of smaller bank closings and a panic in Scottish capital markets. Finally, on June 25, the Ayr Bank also closed, bankrupting many wealthy investors. Bank and personal bankruptcies increased rapidly. In the next six months, the crisis spread to continental Europe and Russia. The credit crisis crossed the sea, hitting plantation trading in Virginia, South Carolina, and the West Indies. 

The credit crisis took the West Indies plantations to the breaking point and affected the triangular trade with New England traders. The East India Company was also bankrupted but received support from the British government.In Virginia, tobacco backed up in warehouses as demand and prices dropped. British credit dried up and colonial credit followed. The colonial treasuries were still in debt from the 1760s. Debt due to British merchants soared, and prominent Virginians appealed to Parliament for help. The famous Tidewater plantation owners were forced to take austerity measures unknown before 1772. Other planters moved west to reduce costs. Rice and indigo plantations in South Carolina experienced a similar depression. 

The other American colonies were indirectly affected when the European economies failed. The biggest problem for the New England and middle colonies was a new round of British taxation and regulation in the midst of this downturn. Parliament passed the famous Tea Act of 1773. The act’s purpose was to raise revenue by tightening regulation and ownership of trade. The Tea Act actually reduced taxes but increased revenue for Britain by eliminating smuggling and giving the East India Company a monopoly. Giving the East India Company the right to authorize the only merchants that could sell tea eliminated colonial merchants who dealt in smuggled or Dutch tea and the growing class of smugglers and middlemen. In addition, the royal regulators were given new authority to seize goods and ships. 

These regulators got a third of the taxes and fines, which further motivated them to enforce strict, if not excessive, regulation. Colonial protests included the destruction of tea shipments in actions like the Boston Tea Party and attacks on British soldiers and officials. In North Carolina, a guerrilla militia was formed to attack the king’s commissioners and regulators. Riots occurred, even in conservative New York, as merchants, artisans, and businesses went bankrupt.

Depression and political unrest hit all levels of society in 1773. Violence became commonplace as the British took more police actions. The economic crisis of 1772 had united many different groups, such as New England merchants and artisans with southern plantation owners. It became obvious that the economic arrangements with Britain had chained the colonies and disrupted their economies, and the road to revolution was now clear.

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1764–1765—Sugar Act, Currency Act, and Stamp Act Boycotts

By the early 1760s, all the British colonies in America were experiencing a postwar recession. The depression was affecting the full spectrum of industries and colonists. Most historians think that, by 1764, it had become America’s first depression. Great Britain too was struggling with massive debts from the French and Indian War and believed the colonies should pay more of its war debts. To reduce British war debt, Parliament passed a series of acts—the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Townsend Act—placing new duties and regulations on Britain’s American colonies. 

Great Britain also strengthened its restriction on the printing of paper currency in the colonies with the Currency Act of 1764, at a time when the colonies had low reserves of gold and silver. The colonies had used their reserves to pay their bills from the French and Indian War. Tight money—from currency restrictions and a shortage of specie—and new taxes from Parliament restricted the colonies’ means of expanding the economy. These British taxes and restrictions created a major economic crisis in the colonies that moved from recession to depression. Many believe this depression was the root of the American Revolution.

The Sugar Act of 1764 is better described by its name—the American Rev-enue Act. The act placed import duties on sugar, wine, coffee, indigo, and textiles brought into the colonies. It also required stricter enforcement of the Molasses Act of 1733. New regulations required merchants to submit customs forms. Interestingly, the act actually cut the tax rate on molasses in half in hope of better compliance. However, the rum distilleries of New England had become adept at avoiding the taxes on rum for 30 years.

Merchants in all the colonies protested the Sugar Act and its taxes on imports the most. Boston merchants even sent a letter of protest to Parliament. The tight money and the influx of cheaper British pewter and metal tableware destroyed the business of craftsmen such as Paul Revere. Merchants and craftsmen were also hurt by the Currency Act, which restricted colonial paper money, causing currency shortages. The return to a currency backed by gold and silver in effect stopped the making of silverware by American craftsmen, except where the customer supplied his own silver to be melted down.

The Stamp Act of 1765 proved to be even more politically explosive during these colonial hard times because it directly taxed goods moving within the colonies. In 1765, many prominent Boston merchants, such as Nathaniel Wheelwright, went bankrupt. The Stamp Act imposed a tax on printed materials, including legal papers, deeds, newspapers, and playing cards. This time people took to the streets in reaction to the new act, and riots occurred in all the colonies. The lieutenant governor’s mansion was burned in New England. The discontent caused by the Stamp Act gave rise to the Sons of Liberty patriotic group. Local craftsmen moved to manufacture household goods themselves instead of buying British imports. Merchants and groups like the Sons of Liberty started local boycotts of British goods. As during any depression, the unemployed and the poor joined in the political movement out of frustration.

The Stamp Act solidified colonial governments against British taxation. Pat-rick Henry led the Virginia effort, Sam Adams led the New England effort, and Ben Franklin led the Pennsylvania effort. The colonies moved toward a unified front, calling a meeting of colonial representatives in New York. Representatives signed the Nonimportation Agreement to boycott British goods. Colonists enthusiastically joined the boycott and British merchants were soon feeling the pain.The British Parliament pressed for a compromise. It was clear that the colonies continued to be in a depression, and the urban centers had high unemployment. The Stamp Act was repealed in 1767, though Parliament reaffirmed its right to tax the colonies. Parliamentary repeal of the Stamp Act gave rise to celebrations in the streets of the colonies.

The celebrations were short-lived when the Townshend Act was passed in 1767. This new set of taxes targeted imported goods such as paper, glass, and tea. Tea became a flash point as colonists boycotted it, and a brisk smuggling trade in Dutch tea developed. Tea was the national drink; little coffee was consumed in the colonies at that time. Another unpopular element of the legislation was that the taxes helped pay for royal commissioners to enforce the Townshend Act, which took away the enforcement authority previously held by the colonists. The new cus-toms system, where merchants had to submit customs forms, made it difficult for the colonists to cheat and elude the new taxes. Britain sent two regiments to Boston to keep the peace. Besides the obvious political issues, British soldiers added to the local economic woes by working off-hours for low wages, creating tension with the large number of unemployed. Incidents of British soldiers replacing colonial laborers in the workforce brought the lower classes into the struggle with the motherland.

The colonists boycotted more goods and were again successful. In 1767, New York City imported more than 350,000 pounds of tea. By 1770, after the boycott of imported British tea, fewer than 150 pounds of tea was imported into New York. Parts of the Townshend Act were repealed but were replaced with new parliamentary taxes in the 1770s.

The colonial economy remained stuck in recession, but a new manufacturing sector started to emerge. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, became a crafts and manufacturing center that supplied frontiersmen during the boycotts and high taxes on goods in the 1760s. In 1770, Lancaster had 13 blacksmiths, 22 masons, 15 coopers, 19 tailors, 7 hatters, 6 gunsmiths, 3 clockmakers, 3 silversmiths, more than 50 various craftsmen in woodworking, and hundreds of apprentices associated with them. In addition, the surrounding area had iron furnaces and glassmaking factories as well as weavers and leather craftsmen.Depressions often result in infrastructure changes in the economy. One positive side of the depression and high taxation in the 1760s was the rise of colonial manufacturing. Before the 1760s, Virginia and South Carolina exported most textiles from Great Britain. 

After the new taxation laws, southern plantations began to produce their own textiles. Similarly, textile manufacturers were encouraged in New England. Stocking production started in Pennsylvania. New England started to manufacture shoes, which by the end of the decade, they were supplying to the colonies to replace British imports. In addition, South Carolina and other colonies expanded their export trade in rice and indigo. By the end of the decade, colonial exports exceeded the value of imports.

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1762—Colonial Recession

The recession of 1762 was the first truly American recession affecting all the colonies. It was a classic type of recession, created by war and inflation, and one that would be repeated throughout the centuries. This economic crisis was caused by the clash of two empires over the assets of the New World.

By the middle of the 18th century, Great Britain was in control of the coastal colonies of America, and France controlled Canada and the western territories of the Mississippi Valley; the Ohio territory was claimed by both countries. The real crisis was over who would control the fur trade and the rich bottom land of the Ohio Valley. The governor of Virginia formed the Ohio Company, headed by a young colonel, George Washington, to explore and lay claim to land in the Ohio Valley. A small, deadly encounter between Washington and his troops and a French force in the Ohio territory would launch a world war in 1753. The resulting Seven Years’ War was fought in America and Europe. The war debt acquired by the colonies and Brittan was staggering. Massachusetts alone ended up owing over £500,000, which represented five times the annual revenues of the colony.

This war drained colonial and British treasuries. To continue to pay for the war, colonial governments created an excess of paper money that was not backed by gold or silver. This fiat currency, paper money printed without being backed by physical commodities that have a value, ended up creating war inflation as too much paper money drove up the price of the goods available for purchase. Inflation during the war was at its highest in commercial Massachusetts, which sold treasury bonds that paid 6 percent interest to raise money to finance the war. Prices for New England commodities, such as molasses, rum, and fish, increased 44 percent from 1755 to 1762. The war would be one of the world’s most costly for a century.

The war initially created an economic boom in the colonies. The colonists generally profited from the war by selling their wares for higher and higher prices, while the colonial governments sunk into deep debt. But the colonial governments’ use of unbacked paper money and deficit spending created an inflationary spiral while the war spending continued. The end of the war in 1762 brought a con-traction in the colonial economy. War spending stopped, and the paper money in circulation began to depreciate. In addition, Great Britain wanted the colonies to pay more for the costs of the war. To accomplish this, Britain imposed more taxes and enforced the earlier Navigation Acts, such as the Molasses Act, more severely. Great Britain’s quest to pay off its war debt by taxing the colonies would become the economic background for the Revolutionary War.

The British colonies themselves imposed heavy real estate taxes to help pay their debt to the king. North Carolina added a liquor tax as well. Several colonies issued paper money and notes, and others used deficit spending by supplying IOUs to Great Britain. Virginia was originally the only colony that refused to increase taxation to pay for the war, preferring to use deficit spending. However, deeply indebted to Great Britain after the war, Virginia levied additional taxes on tobacco planters to pay its share of war debts, creating a depression in which many planters were left bankrupt.

Some Virginia planters, such as George Washington, switched to wheat production, which was free of British rules and fees. However, the demand for grain decreased at the end of the war. In addition, by the end of 1762, there was a major drought in the colonies, which required them to import expensive grain from Europe. The story was similar for South Carolina and its rice planters. And because both of these colonies were dependent on Great Britain to finance their plantations, planters experienced a credit crisis. Great Britain was not anxious to make loans to colonies that could not repay their previous debts. Not surprisingly, these Virginia and South Carolina planters would be supporters of the decision to break away from Great Britain a decade later.

The recession of the 1760s lasted most of the decade. Possibly the worst hit was Massachusetts. Having issued treasury bills redeemable in coin and paying 6 percent interest, the colony had heavy war debts to repay. The payments had to be made in coin—actual gold or silver—which increased the burden on the colonial government. After the war, Massachusetts imposed huge taxes on the population. Real estate taxes in Boston were raised to more than 60 percent.Britain would soon launch a number of new governmental acts, imposing new taxes on the colonies to pay for the war just as the colonies were in the middle of this deep recession. The combination of high taxes and economic recession made this postwar period very painful for New England traders, craftsmen, and shop owners as well as the planters of the southern colonies. This colonial middle class would never fully recover and would be part of the movement supporting independence in 1776.

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1750—Iron Act

Iron had determined the world’s economic and military powers for centuries. In biblical times the Philistines forbade the Israelites from making or working iron, and other countries followed in trying to limit nations from producing or obtaining this strategic metal. In the 18th century, iron had increased in importance, as it was the metal of cannon makers and toolmakers. American iron works dated back to 1621 in Virginia and grew steadily from smelting pig iron to processing pig iron into iron and steel implements.

Pig iron was made by smelting iron ore in a charcoal furnace. Pig iron is cast iron, and although strong, it is brittle. By reheating and hammering pig iron in a forge it can be made into wrought iron bar and steel that could be used in tools, guns, tinplate utensils, and agricultural implements. By 1750, the American colonies were exporting iron products; in particular, iron bar went to the West Indies and Africa as part of the triangular trade. In 1750, America was the third biggest exporter of bar iron after Russia. The production of iron bar was the beginning of American industry in general.

John Winthrop had come to Massachusetts to establish iron making in the colonies. In 1651, he teamed up with English and colonial investors to build Saugus Iron Works, which had a furnace, rolling mills, forges, and slitting mills. It was a state-of-the-art operation comparable to world-class iron operations. Winthrop’s success led to his building two more iron operations in Connecticut in 1670. Short on labor, Winthrop obtained Scottish prisoners from Cromwell’s England to man the operations.

In 1732, in response to the tobacco depression, Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia moved to build an iron works as well. Spotswood’s furnace and forge was manned by 70 Germans and 100 slaves. Another successful operation, Cornwall Furnace in eastern Pennsylvania, was producing 50 tons a week in 1750. In central Pennsylvania and Maryland, iron plantations emerged that employed 200 workers plus slaves to process iron. By 1750, Iron had become central to America; the colonies had many charcoal furnaces in operation and many foreign investors. Even Virginia plantation owners, who were self-sufficient in most needs, purchased processed American iron bar for blacksmiths to make such things as horseshoes.

Initially, Britain did not oppose American iron making for fear of her colonies arming for war but because it feared the loss of pig iron processing back in Britain. Exported processed iron and steel tools were a big business for the forges and iron mills of Great Britain. The Iron Act of 1750 was aimed at forcing the American colonies to ship all pig iron processing to Britain so that it could be shipped back to the colonies as tools and implements. Great Britain was also short on pig iron at home because iron processing required huge amounts of wood to make charcoal for the smelting process, and Britain had been deforested by its own iron production.

In addition, Great Britain’s main source of imported pig iron, Sweden, had joined an alliance against Britain. Without pig iron imports from the colonies, British manufacturers would no longer be able to forge tools in Britain. Britain also wanted to stop the colonies from moving into more manufacturing trades like gunsmithing. The act hit the iron-working colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia particularly hard. All the colonies suffered, however, as the price of critical iron and steel increased dramatically.

The Iron Act of 1750 prohibited any new nail mills, slitting mills, and forges from being built in the colonies. Existing furnaces were to ship their pig iron product to Great Britain. Governors were to list and report all colonial operations in detail. One problem, of course, was that many of the governors had invested in the iron industry, seeing it as fundamental to the colonial economy. Other prominent people in the iron business included George Washington’s father and brother and many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The Iron Act loomed as a potential crisis to shut down colonial industrial growth, though initially the downturn created by the act was short-lived as colonists found ways to avoid enforcement. Iron bar had become a key part of barter trade with non-British colonies. Just as important was the economic boom the iron industry was creating. Tool making—hatchets, axes, guns, and plows—was aiding western expansion and reducing plantation costs in the southern states. Connecticut iron, for example, was famous in the making of American rifles, and gunsmiths and all the colonies depended on its continued production.

The threat to colonial growth from the enforcement of the Iron Act encouraged many governors to ignore the act and to give under counts of colonial furnaces and forges to the king. Owners and investors moved their pig iron operations further into the interior to avoid government agents. At the ports, bar iron was smuggled to non-British destinations. Ultimately, the conflict over the Iron Act of 1750 was overwhelmed by international events. 

The British force of 1753 raised to attack the French colonies in America took priority by mid-decade, when the colonies were required to financially back the war. It proved difficult for the British to enforce the Iron Act, which could have done great harm to the colonial economy at the very time they sought colonial funds to support the war against the French. The British government made some minor amendments to the act in 1757, and the act actually stayed on the books until 1867.

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