The American Revolution was a conflict between the thirteen British colonies, and it's mother country, Great Britain. In late spring and early summer of seventeen seventy-six, after more than a year of fighting, the Second Continental Congress debated whether to declare independence or not. The reasons which impelled them to do so are outlined in the Declaration of Independence, and can be considered under the topics of parliamentary taxation, civil liberties, and British military measures. The French and Indian War changed the relationship between the colonies and their mother country. A decade of conflicts between the British government and the colonists, beginning with the Stamp Act