William Knox

Colonial expert and pamphleteer William Knox has received attention in virtually every major study of the American Revolution, yet this is the first biography of Knox ever written. Knox is best known as undersecretary of state in the American Department of the British government from 1770 to 1782. A prolific and candid commentator, he also made a reputation as a pamphleteer, defending the imperial cause during the decade preceding the Revolution. It had been his experience as provost marshal in Georgia from 1757 to 1762 that convinced Knox of the danger to the empire of the growing "democratic" forces in the American colonies. While numerous historical works have focused on this or that aspect of Knox's career and thought, such treatment has produced at best a jigsaw portrait. Bellot's comprehensive narrative reveals Knox as a person-one whose Calvinist heritage and Scots-Irish upbringing profoundly influenced his view of empire-and as a historical actor and witness. Here is a look at the events of the revolutionary period through the eyes of a British bureaucrat who had a significant role in both the formation and the execution of British policy. This perspective also provides an excellent case study of the operation of the eighteenth-century British bureaucracy.