The Kingdom of Great Britain—referred to by Paine simply as “Britain” or “England”—in 1775 centered on the island of Great Britain, which includes England, Scotland, and Wales; it also ruled Ireland, the American and Canadian colonies in North America, much of the Indian subcontinent, and elsewhere. At the time of Common Sense’s publication, the monarch was King George III, who ruled with the help of a House of Lords, made up of noblemen, and a Parliament, an assembly of commoners.

Britain developed 13 colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America, from Georgia in the south to Massachusetts (including a large area that later became the state of Maine) in the north. Britain’s victories over France, in a war conducted between 1754 and 1763, won it the French territories west and north of the British colonies. To pay for the war, Britain levied new taxes on its American colonists, leading to a spat that spilled over into armed rebellion. Common Sense was the chief published argument for America’s revolution, which lasted from 1775 to 1783, when, under the Treaty of Paris, Britain recognized the United States. For decades thereafter, American-British relations were touchy, but the two countries eventually reconciled and have been close allies since the early 20th century.