DiggsUK wrote:One could argue that if it wasn't for the British Empire, what is now called the USA would still be governed from London... It was after all the demands of fighting the French in other parts of the world that determined the low level of political interest in 'the colonies' on the part of the British.
Just a thought...
No, it's not just a thought, it's a good point. The idiot George had been ignored and relegated to third rate companions and tutors until Frederick, Prince of Wales, died, and suddenly, he who would become George III became the heir apparent. John Stuart, Earl of Bute, educated at Eton and Leiden in Holland, was appointed his tutor and companion in the rush to prepare George for the succession. Bute had all the prejudices of his class, and none of the charm, wit, perception or social skills which might have allowed him to present George successfully to the society of the peerage and successful men of affairs. As a consequence, Bute "brought George out" by introducing him to his, Bute's, personal friends, most of whom were half-pay officers of regiments which only employed them in time of war--which is to say, men who shared Bute's prejudices and limitations, and lack of perspective and a sense of proportion.
To begin at the beginning: The colonies in America were barely begun when Charles I began to squabble with Parliament. In 1628, Parliament was prorogued, and Charles attempted to govern without them. The Virginia company had been dissolved, and taken over as a royal colony, but the colonists had already established their House of Burgesses, and begun the process of self-government in the absence of effective commercial management by the failing company, and before the inept colonial governmental system upon which the empire would rely, literally for centuries to come, had been imposed (it's vestiges can still be seen in goverments of the Commonwealth).
Massachusetts had several small settlements set up by hopeful men who sought freedom--although not necessarily always the "religious freedom" which is central to the bogus historical claptrap about the "Pilgrim fathers." Elizabeth had tolerated the Puritans because she had bigger fish to fry (the Spanish and her erstwhile fiancé, Philipp II), and she was willing to ignore a modicum of heresy to the established church in return for unquestioning loyalty to the crown. Her successor, James VI and I, had been schooled in the political lunacy of Scotland, and was equally as tolerant. Puritanism flourished. But in 1625, James died, and was succeeded by his pig-headed, narrow-minded and ludicrously devout son, Charles. James had been devout--it was his project to provide a new translation of the Bible which has become "the King James Version"--but he was religiously devout, and not much impressed with sectarianism. He had been obliged to tolerate the Kirk in Scotland before he succeeded to the throne in London, and the Puritans of England were much milder version with whom he maintained cordial enough relations. Perhaps his homosexuality taught him the tolerance his son would not display.
Charles was the boon companion of Bishop Laud, whom he would make Archbishop of Canterbury, before Parliament finally took the Bishop's head from him. Laud was as rigidly dogmatic, pig-headed and narrow-minded as anyone could wish for the head of an established church, and Puritans began leaving England almost immediately. In fact, many had left before James had died, deciding the could not tolerate the "license" of England in those days. Some settled in Holland, others made for the new world. Virginia was no haven for the devout, and they ended upon settling on Massachusetts' bay. I'm sure good Mr. Maverick on the northern shore, where Salem would one day be established, was less than charmed with his new neighbors.
After the accession of Charles, the lines were drawn, and combat fairly joined. Charles eventually forbad persons to leave the kingdom without royal warrant (the flight of specie--cold, hard cash--so so significant as to be allarming, estimates run to 20 million pounds sterling in gold and silver). Before that time, though, some rather clever Puritans has secured a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company, which charter, unlike all others, did not specify that the charter be kept in London, and that the Governor and Selectmen were to meet in London. Not being so bound, the Company chose John Winthrop as their Governor, and sent him, along with the Charter, the Lieutenant Governor and all the Selectmen to Massachusetts. There, envisioning the "shining city on the hill" (you didn't really think either Ronald Reagan or his speech writers actually had an original thought, did you?) and a "godly republic in the wilderness," Winthrop extended the franchise beyond the Selectmen of the Company to any man who was in good standing in a recognized congregation of "the Saints." Virginia already had extended the franchise to any land-owner, no matter how humble.
The lunacy of Charles and Bishop Laud are not within the scope of this brief essay--suffice it to note that in 1638, the Scots handed Charles his ass, militarily speaking, when he attempted to implement Laud's plan to force the Book of Common Prayer on them. Charles was obliged to recall Parliament, but they as quickly dissolved themselves and called a new election (in the 11 year hiatus, sufficient members had died or left the kingdom to destroy the quorum), and the Long Parliament was born. Civil war broke out in 1640.
Virginia and Massachusetts were left to their own devices. The local aboriginals had become disenchanted in both colonies, and the two colonies found themselves obliged to organize for warfare, the last step to complete sovereignty but one. Even after the restoration in 1660, a hostile New France in Canada using Amerindians as proxies made war on the colonies, who got little to no help from the mother country, and were obliged to defend themselves, which they did with increasing skill. By the time of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748 in Europe, its North American equivalent was known as King George's War), the colonists had become sufficiently expert that an expedition from New England, needing only an escort from the Royal Navy, took the great French fortress of Louisbourg--which was promptly handed back in the peace negotiations.
By the time of the Seven Years war (in Europe, 1756-63), the colonies had already been fighting what they called the French and Indian War since 1753 (thanks to some ineptitude on the part of George Washington, who actually did not break international law, but simply couldn't read French). Virginia raised a militia regiment, huge by European standards, and eventually two regiments. She defended her own frontiers and those of the Carolinas and Georgia. Maryland seconded the English army and the Virginians in the march to the Ohio river which eventually succeeded in avenging Braddock's disaster, as did Pennsylvania. New York and New Jersey provided troops for failed expeditions against Montcalms French, Canadians and Indians, as well as the successful expedition lead by William Johnson which combined colonists and Iroquois to avenge the massacre at Fort William.
When Governor Shirley was recalled and Governor Pownall sent out (there was then a single governor for all of "New England"), Pownall wrote to the Lords of Trade (responsible for administistering the colonies) in April of 1758 to tell them of the efforts Massachusetts was making. He pointed out that the colony had a peacetime budget of 45,000 pounds sterling, but that, after three years of active hositilities, one of every seven men in the colony served the King by land or sea, and the colony had run up a debt in excess of 350,000 pounds. Furthermore, he reported that the colony had laid a special tax to sink the debt within three years,
and that the population did not object because it had been passed by their elected representatives. Although the lesson may not have been lost on the Lords of Trade, it apparently never penetrated to the parlors in which the Earl of Bute was introducing the pudgy and awkward George to the wives and families of the men whom he had earlier met, and who were now off fighting the French in Hanover.
With the war over, England had contracted a huge debt. She had sent some troops to fight with the brilliant Duke of Brunswick, but had sent much more in the way of money to defend Hanover, where King George II had been born. She had also sent very large sums to prop up Frederick II of Prussia, as he fought both the Austrians and the Russians.
But George II died, and Parliament lost all interest in defending any part of Germany. All of the good friends of the Earl of Bute, and by now, the newly minted George III, were back on half-pay. George wanted to find them useful employment. Parliament, filled with property owners and the money men or their salaried toad-eaters like Edmund Burke, wanted to get their money back, but not by property taxes or any excise which might impinge on the profits of the City. Both parties looked west.
Despite having borne such a large burden in the late war, largely to the benefit of the empire; despite having defended themselves and that portion of the empire, as well as providing levies to defend the valuable Sugar Islands for which Parliament was far more willing to fight than the mainland colonies; despite having done so almost unaided before the late war--Parliament decided that the Americans needed to pay for their own defense. New regiments were raised, Royal Americans, and Bute found employment for his cronies. However, the regiments weren't stationed on the frontiers, where the Indians threatened, they were stationed on the sea coasts, or, they were shipped off to the West Indies. Additionally, the Lords of Trade forbad the colonists to cross the mountains to the fertile grounds of the west.
Without going further into the rather silly arguments which both sides now advanced for their positions (Americans refused to recognize the very real help they had recieved, and the English refused to acknowledge how much they had relied upon the Americans for more than a century to hold the western rim of empire)--the upshot of all of this is that the revolution was not inevitable. The Parliament and the idiot George III needn't have chased the Americans from a loyalty they had displayed and consecrated in blood for more than a hundred years. Even with revolution come, the appearance of Suffren in the Indian Ocean and De Grasse in the Carribean were sufficient to distract the Parliament from the Americans, and to eventually give up what might have been the greatest imperial prize in history to hang onto some sugar islands and some trading depots for calico and gem stones, to benefit a handful of slave-owners who sat at or sent toad-eaters to Westminister.
DiggsUK is absolutely correct--stupid venality and arrogance lost for England what might truly have made them the greatest empire in history. Of all the historical "what ifs," that of a loyal America in the empire is not only one of the most plausible--the revolution need never have happened--but it is one of the most mystifying. It is almost impossible to imagine what the world would have been if England had been able to keep America, and the loyalty of the Americans.
