Parliament and Empire 1660-1815

1660-63

Parliament passed the Navigation Acts to control colonial trade

1763

Peace of Paris ended the Seven Years War. Britain gained Quebec, trans-Appalachian lands, the Floridas, French West Indian islands and Senegal.

1764

East India Company victorious  at the Battle of Buxar and later granted the right to collect revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa

1765

Parliament passed the Stamp Act for the North American colonies

1766

Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, but passed the Declaratory Act

1767

Parliament passed the Townshend Duties on American imports

1770

Parliament removed all the Townshend Duties except on tea

1773

American protesters dumped tea in Boston Harbour -the Boston Tea Party. Parliament passed Lord North's East India Company Regulating Act

1774

Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts to punish Boston and Massachusetts and to settle a government in Quebec

1775

Battle of Lexington and Concord saw the first fighting between American colonists and British soldiers

1776

American Continental Congress proclaimed American independence (4 July)

1781

British general Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Americans at Yorktown.

1783

Peace of Paris, Treaty of Versailles ended the War of American Independence. Britain recognized the independence of the United States of America

1784

Parliament passed William Pitt's India Act

1788

Edmund Burke began impeachment proceedings against Warren Hastings Convicts were transported to Botany Bay to establish New South Wales

1791

Parliament passed the Constitution Act for British North America

1792

House of Commons agreed to a motion for the abolition of the slave trade

1795

Warren Hastings was acquitted

1807 

Parliament passed the Act for the Abolition of the British Slave Trade

1813

Parliament's East India Company Charter Act opened the India trade to all, and eased restrictions on missionaries' access to India

1815

The Peace of Vienna ended the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Britain gained the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Tobago, St Lucia and Guiana