Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford by Arthur Pond

The Excise Bill of 1733 was a proposal by the British government of

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...

to impose an

excise tax file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

on a variety of products. This would have allowed

Customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...

officers to search private dwellings to look for contraband untaxed goods. The perceived violation of the

Rights of Englishmen The "rights of Englishmen" are the traditional rights of English subjects and later English-speaking subjects of the British Crown. In the 18th century, some of the colonists who objected to British rule in the thirteen British North American ...

provoked widespread opposition and the bill was eventually withdrawn. Whig opposition MP William Pitt took the lead in criticising the proposal, invoking the concept that an " Englishman's house is his castle". William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham by William Hoare

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham by William Hoare

Walpole proposed the bill while at the height of his powers, during the

Whig Ascendency Whig or Whigs may refer to: Parties and factions In the British Isles * Whigs (British political party), one of two political parties in England, Great Britain, Ireland, and later the United Kingdom, from the 17th to 19th centuries ** Whiggism ...

, but its defeat was an early sign of the waning of his dominance over British politics which came to an end in 1742. Opposition

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...

Mps were joined by the emerging

Patriot Whigs The Patriot Whigs, later the Patriot Party, were a group within the Whig Party in Great Britain from 1725 to 1803. The group was formed in opposition to the government of Robert Walpole in the House of Commons in 1725, when William Pulteney (l ...

to oppose the measure, signalling an alliance between these two forces.

Aftermath

Much of the ideology and arguments used against the bill in Britain, later influenced American resistance to the Stamp Act. Like the opposition to the Excise Bill, this focused on the argument that governments had a right to tax external trade through

customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...

, but not to interfere in private exchanges by British subjects.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Cite book, last=Slaughter, first=Thomas P., title=The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution, publisher=Oxford University Press, date=1988 1733 in Great Britain Robert Walpole