iament.When this complex issue was finally resolved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688,England turned its attention back to the colonies and found that colonists haddeveloped their own identity as American. There was no central office in England to control what was happening in thecolonies. The executive authority in England was divided among severalministers and commissioners that did not act quickly or in unison. Also, theBoard of Trade, the branch of government that knew more about the coloniesthan any other governing body in England, did not have the power to makedecisions or to enforce decrees. Due to the distractions from the complexconstitutional issues and ineffective governmental organization the colonists feltfurther separated from England(Blum 51). The political scene in England was laced with corruption. Officers of thegovernment sent to the colonies were often bribe-taking politicians that were notsmart enough to hold government positions in England. After Grenville andTownshend the most incompetent was Lord North, who became Prime Ministerin 1770 after the death of Charles Townshend. "North was the kind of politicianGeorge had been looking for ----a plodding, dogged, industrious man, neither afool nor a genius, much like the king himself. For the next twelve years, despitethe opposition of abler men, he remained at the head of the government(Blum104)." Corruption and incompetence among governing politicians often madetheir rule over the colonies ineffective. In the years leading up to the final decade before the American Revolution, therelationship between Great Britain and her colonies in North America continuedto deteriorate. Relations began to worsen with the great victory over the Frenchand Indians in the Seven Years War. Unwelcome British troops had remained inthe colonies. Debts from this war caused the Prime Minister at the time, LordGrenville, to enforce Mercantilism in an effort to get the colonists to pay theirsh...
