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This truce lasted until a 22 year old lieutenant colonel in the British army, a certain George Washington had his men launch an unprovoked attack on French troops at Jumonville Glen in 1754, killing 10 of them and murdering their commander. This effectively sparked off the seven-year war (1756-63) during which the French tried to drive the (non-French) colonists out of America. To defend them, Britain had to increase its troop numbers in the colonies to ten thousand men. This is because when the colonists were left to their own devices, they nearly always lost, George Washington was particularly useless getting himself captured by the French; (it wasn’t until the revolution that he became an outstanding General).
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The British had repeatedly tried to get the colonists to pay towards their protection, by introducing various taxes, but all were unpopular.
So after the seven-year war the British had a massive debt with few ways to reduce it, so they had to limit expenditure and as the colonists had been the beneficiaries, it was decided:

1. The settlers were to stop taking more and more Indian land, to limit spiralling defence costs and adding to the debt burden
2. The settlers were to stop murdering the Indians (many of which had helped defeat the French), so as not to upset the only money maker in America, that of trading for Furs
3. They had to stop endemic corruption such as smuggling and bribery, that was costing the exchequer so much money
4. They had to find a way of introducing a tax system that worked to help with the debt burden.
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In reality Hancock was a very weathly smuggler, but the British had undercut his overpriced business and sommoned him to appear in court at a time he and Samuel Adams were known to have been in Lexington, where the shots of unknown source were fired at both sides resulting in several Militiamen being killed.
The others including Sam Adams (a failed businessman accused of embezzlement), Allen, Paine, Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison were bitter men, who for various reasons held grievances against the British.
The British only really wanted the smuggling and bribery to stop.

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