Mock Funeral Procession for the Stamp Act

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The Repeal, or the Funeral of Miss Ame-Stamp, [1766]. Engraving. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (9)
[Digital ID# ppmsca-15709]

This 1766 cartoon depicts a mock funeral procession along the Thames River in London for the American Stamp Act. The act generated intense, widespread opposition in America and was labeled “taxation without representation” and a harbinger of “slavery” and “despotism” by the Americans. Colonists convened a Stamp Act Congress in New York in the fall of 1765 and called for a boycott of British imports.

Bowing to the pressure, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766. In this cartoon, a funeral procession to the tomb of the Stamp Act includes its principal proponent, Treasury Secretary George Grenville (1712—1770), carrying a child's coffin, marked "Miss Ame-Stamp born 1765, died 1766."