America in significant numbers in a time of peace. With the defeat of France, the British government no longer sought actively to curry the favour of Native Americans. Urged by his superiors to cut costs, Commander in Chief General Jeffery Amherst initiated policy changes that helped prompt Pontiac's War in 1763, an uprising against the British military occupation of the former New France. Amherst was recalled during the war and replaced as commander in chief by Thomas Gage. American War of Independence The American Revolution had its origins in George III's unpopular attempts to station a permanent garrison force in British America, and in the taxes, duties, and customs levied on colonies to fund the force such as the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts. North Americans in the Thirteen Colonies objected to both the idea of a "standing army" and "taxation without representation" and increasingly denied that the Parliament of Great Britain should have authority or, eventually, sovereignty over the colonies, positions which Parliament viewed as challenges to parliamentary supremacy. For the British Army, the American War of Independence had its origins in the military occupation of Boston in 1768. Tensions between the army and local civilians helped contribute to the Boston Massacre of 1770, but outright warfare did not begin until 1775, when the "Minutemen" militias in the Massachusetts Bay Province attacked an army detachment sent to seize colonial munitions at Battles of Lexington and Concord. Reinforcements were sent to America to put down what was initially expected to be a short-lived rebellion, despite the fact that in July 1776 the Second Continental Congress leading the revolt declared the Thirteen Colonies' independence as the United States of America. Because the British army was understrength at the outset of the war, the British government hired the mercenaries of several German states, referred to generically as "Hessians", to fight in North America. As the war dragged on, the ministry also sought to recruit Loyalist soldiers. Five American Loyalist units (known as the American Establishment, formed in 1779) were placed on the regular army roster, though there were many other Loyalist units. When the war ended in 1783 with the British government forced to recognize its defeat and U.S. independence under the Treaty of Paris, many United Empire Loyalists fled north to British Canada, where many subsequently served with the British Army or colonial militias. The Army itself