America Eterna: The History of the Federal Kingdom of America

[Wolf]

And so it begins:


Part I: America Eterna: Ad astra et ad infinitum

(From The American Pageant: A History of the Federal Kingdom of America by Dr. Sir Henry Adams IV and Dr. Susan Juarez, Royal Harvard Press, Cambridge, MA 2010)

Chapter III: Revolution.


It is amazing to think that that just two hundred and thirty four years ago what is now the Federal Kingdom of America was just sixteen separate colonies, stretching from Georgia to what was then called St. John’s Island, now known as Prince Phillip Island in the north [1]. Now America stretches from the Arctic to Panama, from the Philippines to the Moon. But how did America go from a divided coastal nation to the greatest nation ever seen in all of history?

At no time during the Revolution and the days after did this seem the likely or even a possible course. Many of the colonies had little in common. Quebec was a Catholic French speaking colony with a minority of Protestant and Catholic Anglophones, many fleeing oppression in Ireland [2]. In Pennsylvania the colony was populated by Germans and Quakers and so on.

Contrary to myth many of the Founding Fathers were not all rabid supporters of Independence from Great Britain. Many of them had served Britain during the French and Indian War and some including Guy Carleton, his brother Thomas, and their nephew Christopher were members of the British Army! Some like Joseph Brandt were Natives [3].

And for this group of men, a group as diverse as the Colonies themselves, to come together, don the Phrygian cap and defeat the world’s most powerful nation is astonishing even to this day. Benjamin Franklin perhaps said it the best when upon signing the Declaration of Independence he quipped, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Once the Declaration of Independence had been signed these men had crossed the Rubicon, there was no turning back now. Yet seemingly these men all accepted their fates with grace and dignity and without a second thought.

And not only did the War of Independence give the Founding Fathers the determination they needed during that hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia when our Federal Kingdom came into being it also led to the rise of the second generation of men who would help guide and lead the Federal Kingdom to greatness. Much of our Federal Kingdom’s lore comes from the Revolutionary War. What schoolchild today does not know of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride or the actions of the young Andrew Jackson and the young Tecumseh in the woods of Ohio and Pennsylvania, over thirty years before they would lead the Royal Armies to victory over the forces of Napoleon on the Iberian Peninsula and in France itself?

Perhaps most what is most important is the beginnings of a common and shared identity during the Revolution when the Virginian and the Quebecois, the Georgian and the Nova Scotian, the New Hampshirite and the Pennsylvanian, European and Native, Catholic and Protestant became American. While this does not underscore the problems that would face the Federal Kingdom over its long history; the roots of our common identity as Americans hearken back to the days of Valley Forge and the Second Battle Trois Rivieres.

On that hallowed day, July 4, 1776, great men from Virginia, Quebec, New York, Rhode Island, Georgia, South Carolina, Nova Scotia, Prince Phillip Island, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts laid forth the foundation of what was to become the greatest nation the world has ever seen.

Our history of the Revolution begins...

[1] Renamed in honour of the Prince of Columbia, Prince Phillip Hamilton in 1800.
[2] More on this later.
[3] The author's (and of the general populace) distinction between so-called "civilised" tribes of the East, ie, the Iroquois Confederacy, the Shawnees, and the Five Civilised Tribes of Natives compared to the uncivilised tribes of Indians in the West. More on this later as well.


A note on spellings. From writing's within the TL I shall be using the English spellings as thats what the citizens of America use ITTL.

[Wolf]

(From The Carleton’s: Service to King and Nation by Sir Jean-Pierre Bureau, University of Québec Press, Trois Rivieres 2007)



Not many families have had such an impact on the course of our great Federal Kingdom as the Carleton’s of Strabane-on-St. Lawrence. From the early days of the Revolution the Carleton’s have been integral to the destiny of America and at times have even changed the course of history itself. Perhaps out of all the individuals that have come from this great family none have had more of an impact than Guy Carleton, the 1st Baron Carleton.



From a perspective of a historian Guy Carleton is an interesting and at times a confusing figure. In the course of his life he was an officer in the British Army, the Governor-General of British North America, and a general in the Continental Army, a Peer of the Realm, and the first Proconsul.



Born to an Irish Protestant military family in Strabane in the County of Tyrone, in Ireland on September 3, 1724, from an early age he knew he was destined to serve King and Country. In 1742 at the age of seventeen he was commissioned as an ensign in the 25th Regiment of Foot, being promoted to lieutenant three years later.



During the War of Austrian Succession, known as King George’s War here in North America, he became a friend of James Wolfe, the future hero of the Plains of Abraham. It has often been thought that he had fought at the Battle of Culloden, which brought the end to the Jacobites once and for all. Three years after the War ended he joined the 1st Foot Guards as a Captain, where he was made a Lieutenant Colonel in 1757. The next year he was given the honour being made the lieutenant colonel of the newly formed 72nd Regiment of Foot.



His next military service came during the Seven Years War, referred to as the French and Indian War in North America. In 1758 when Wolfe, whilst commanding troops under Major General Amherst, in the assault on the French fort of Louisburg, in present day Nova Scotia had asked for Carleton to be his aide but King George II declined to make this appointment due to negative comments Carleton had made about Hanoverian soldiers during his service on the Continent during the War of Austrian Succession. When Wolfe was given the command of the campaign against Quebec, Carleton was made quartermaster-general but once again King George II refused to make the appointment until the intervention of Lord Ligonier and William Pitt the Elder.



Upon his arrival in the city of Halifax he assumed command of six hundred grenadiers. When British forces arrived in Quebec in the June of 1759 he was in charge of provisioning them with supplies as well as acting as an engineer supervising the placement of cannon. During the decisive Battle of the Plains of Abraham on 13 September 1759, in which both Major General James Wolfe and French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, the Marquees de Saint-Veran were killed, Carleton received a wound and returned to England in the October of 1759.[1]



On 29 March 1761 as the Lieutenant Colonel of the 72nd Regiment of Foot he took part in the assault on Port-Andro on the Belle-Île-en-Mer, off of the northwest coast of France. During the attack he was seriously wounded and prevented from further participation in the fighting. The next year he was subsequently wounded during the siege of Havana as he was acting as the quartermaster-general to British forces in Cuba under the command of George Keppel, third Earl of Albemarle. During his time in Cuba he would meet Richard Montgomery who would command his left flank during the Second Battle of Trois Rivieres in 1777.




In 1766 he was named acting Lieutenant Governor and Administrator of Quebec, with James Murray still officially in charge arriving in Quebec on the 22nd of September, 1766. His appointment is still difficult to explain by historians as he was a military man and had no experience in public affairs. [2] But at the same time it is quite simple. In 1766 the Duke of Richmond, who had been tutored in the military arts by Carleton in his youth and had commanded the 72nd Regiment of Foot when Carleton had been the Regiment’s lieutenant colonel, had been made Southern Secretary by the Marquees of Rockingham. At the same time Carleton was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all troops stationed in Quebec.



At the time the government of Quebec consisted of an assembly, a Governor, and a council. The Governor had the right of veto but London instructed him that all of the actions required the approval of the council. At the time most of the province’s civil servants did not receive a salary but charged fees for their services. Carleton tried to institute a salary system but London refused. In turn Carleton renounced his own fees which infuriated Murray.



Murray resigned and on 12 April 1768 Carleton was appointed Captain General. The next year he sailed to England for what he thought was going to be short time but wound up taking years. While in England he married the daughter of the second Earl of Effingham, Maria Howard, who would give birth to four children. [3]



His time in England would change the course of history forever. Carleton had long been a supporter of French-Canadian interests and looked to advocate for them during his stay in England. He found an ally in William Legge, who was the second Earl of Dartmouth, and Secretary of State for the Colonies starting 1772.



After events in the colonies such as the Boston Tea Party the government led by Lord North began to move towards adopting legislation that would placate Quebec, but their efforts were to fail. Besides Guy Carleton, the Earl of Dartmouth was one of the bigger proponents of passing such an act and had he lived perhaps such an act would have passed and Quebec might not have joined in the War for Independence. But this was not to be. On a rainy evening in early March 1774 while on a walk around his the outside home, the Earl of Dartmouth slipped on a wet stone and hit his head. He died three days later of what would now be termed by a coroner as an aneurysm. With the death of the Earl of Dartmouth and his replacement in the post of Secretary of State for the Colonies by Lord George Germain, support for French-Canadians dissipated. [4] Lord Germain believed that there was no need to placate what he called “the Papists”, and became involved in several heated discussions with Carleton.



Many historians today blame the loss of the British Empire in North America on Lord Germain and this is not an entirely unfair accusation on their part. While Lord Germain’s actions during the War for Independence are beyond the scope of this text it is safe to say that Lord Germain did not understand the sheer determination of the colonists.



Giving up on having any progress made on the Quebec issue, Carleton sailed for Quebec, in June 1774 with his wife and son frustrated with the government of Lord North and the political situation in London. He arrived back in Quebec and did his best to govern the province despite resistance from London and more specifically Lord Germain.



At the same time across the Atlantic more events transpired that would change both the course of American history and the Carleton family. This year was to be another bad year for Irish harvests and this time the Irish, both Protestant and Catholic would become very vocal about their grievances both real and imagined. And there would be consequences for Britain, Ireland, and America.



And with the New Year’s Rebellion of 1775 yet another member of the Carleton family would come into play...[5].


[1] Per OTL. Carleton seemed unlucky with wounds during the Seven Years War.

[2] Once again as per OTL.

[3] IOTL she would give birth to more but the butterfly effect would change this.

[4] The POD. IOTL the Earl of Dartmouth, for whom the college is named, was very influential in passing the Quebec Act and in some ways was one of the better members of Lord North's cabinet.

[5] More on this later.

[Wolf]

Here is a psuedo-update to end my long drought. It is a preview of things to come.... (note it is not necessarily canon.)

(From The Dark Decades 1915-1947: A Complete History of the Wars of Supremacy and the Rise of Volkovism by Jose K. Paiz 3rd Baron Paiz Imperial University of Mexico Press, Mexico City Anahuac, FKA 1969)



One of the major consequences of the First War of Supremacy was the rise of Volkovism in the defeated Continental Powers, namely France, Russia, Austria and Spain. The Volokovists are the most well known in France and Russia, but there were even minor movements in Great Britain, the Federal Kingdom, and in Gran Columbia while the Union of Kalmar was the metaphorical joker in the deck...




...Before the First War of Supremacy, the Union of Kalmar was a nominal member of the Continental Alliance along with France, Spain, Austria, Bavaria, Sardinia, the Papal States, Poland, Russia, Chile, and Argentina. When the War broke out in the summer of 1915 the Union surprised many around the world by staying neutral and thereby allowing the Prussian and the Royal British and American navies to compete against both the Russians and the Poles in the Baltic Sea and prevented the Russian Baltic Fleet from joining the Royal French Navy in the North Sea and the Channel thereby ultimately sealing the fate of the Continental Alliance.






By failing to close the Atlantic, the French, and to a lesser degree the Spanish, failed to prevent American and Gran Columbian soldiers from arriving on the Continent and saving both Portugal and Catalonia from defeat. And at the same time the European members of the Continental Alliance (France, Austria, Russia, Poland, Bavaria, Sardinia, and the Papal States) were not able to resupply and aid their Argentine and Chilean allies, who fought Brazil, Gran Columbia, and the Dominion of Patagonia.





The failure to enter the war on the part of the Union of Kalmar caused post war relations between the defeated Continental Alliance and the Union. But this would change as Kalmar businesses would help re-arm the Continental powers in secret as well as provide universities in which to do research. Research into the atomics led by Aksel Bohr [1] of the University of Stockholm would also become a major boost up for the Alliance in the Second War of Supremacy, a war that would change the very fabric of society across every continent. And of course the Union of Kalmar would fall into better graces with its estranged allies when it launched a surprise attack against the Prussian cities of Hamburg, Kiel, and Gdansk in the opening stages of the war, along with the Union’s main stroke of tactical genius.





Imitating their Viking ancestors, the United Kalmar Navy would launch the world’s first ever aeroplane carrier raid, sinking a large portion of the British Grand Fleet, docked in Scapa Flow, in a surprise attack while only taking minimal casualties. While the discussion of tactics is beyond the scope of this chapter, the tactics developed by the Continental Powers in the Interwar Era allowed them to achieve overwhelming superiority in the early stages of the war, a superiority that was only broken by the sheer combined industrial might of the Federal Kingdom of America and the Empire of Japan.





Perhaps the most crucial development in the Interwar Era that caused us to have a Second War of Supremacy was the rise of Volkovism . There are many conflicting theories on where Volkolvism arose or at least the principles of Volkovism. With many scholars divided on France and Russia. Increasingly many scholars believe that Volkovism started in Russia in the days after the failed Communist coup d’état of 1919.




For decades the peasants of Russia were serfs, as if the world was still in the Middle Ages and indeed the Russians still had serfs even after the FKA abolished slavery in 1865 at the conclusion of the War of Rebellion and the defeat of the Confederated Kingdom of America at the Battle of Augusta by Earl Robert E. Lee, Second Earl Lee, Earl of Stratford Hall and Marquees Charles Francis Adams, Third Marquees Adams, Marquees of Braintree. The abolishment of serfdom in Russia did come about until 1871 and the rise of Tsar Nicholas II [2] who formally abolished serfdom.





While officially serfdom was abolished in Russia the lives of the former serfs had not improved and in some cases became worse. The poor economic conditions and setbacks in wars against Japan and the 7th Coalition [3] combined to form a powder keg that was waiting to explode at the first match. And in the winter of 1918 that match was to be lit by a revolutionary named Petya Vasilyev.





Vasilyev, born in 1881 in the city of Tsaritsyn to a professor and a house wife was exposed to revolutionary ideology early in life. His father a professor at a local university had become very interested in the writings of Karl Marx and when Petya entered his teens, he too read the works and Marx and become an advocate for reform.




Many historians believe if his father and brothers had not been arrested by the Tsarist government he would have remained a moderate reformer but this was not to be so. In 1896 both his father and his older brother were arrested for participating in revolutionary protests in Tasritsyn. After the loss of his father’s income the situation of the Vasilyev family became desperate and Petya himself grew angrier by the year. Eventually in 1907 after being arrested for the fourth time he was exiled to Switzerland by the Russian government. While in exile in Geneva he met several other revolutionaries and they agreed that something had to be done and with start of the First War of Supremacy and the catastrophic failure after catastrophic failure that the Russian military was to face presented an unprecedented opportunity to Vasilyev and his fellow revolutionaries.




Vasilyev and Dimitri Rolinkov approached the Prussian ambassador to Switzerland with an opportunity the members of the 7th Coalition could not refuse. If the Coalition was to provide transportation into Russia for Vasilyev, Rolinkov, and their fellow revolutionaries they would in turn whip up dissent against the Tsarist government and overthrow the government and remove Russia from the Continental Alliance.





In 1919 as the war raged on across Europe, Asia, and Africa, the revolutionaries made their moves. Arriving in the city of Petrograd, formerly St. Petersburg the name having been changed as it was feared that the name sounded too Prussian, they immediately begin to stir up dissent with many of few remaining military units mutinying against their officers. With a small army under the command of Sergei Alkaev, the military genius of the revolutionaries defeated several attempts my Tsarist forces to remove the People’s Revolutionary Army from the city but their efforts were to be futile, for on a particularly cold December 1, 1919, the Leib Guard, the personal guard of the Tsars mutinied against their officers and joined the PRA. Later that morning at about eleven o’clock the Winter Palace was overrun and the Imperial Family, sans Prince Peter, who was at the front were executed.





Three and a half days later Rolinkov, Vasilyev, and Alkaev formed the People’s Revolutionary Council and declared that the military units in the field should declare their loyalty to the Council, but for one man this might have happened and the world could have seen a Communist state. This one man is one of the most well known in history. His name is Ivan Volkov, who would lend his name to Volkovism.




Once the orders from the Council were received by the 2nd Army Group which was currently fighting outside of the Prussian city of Gdansk, the 2nd Army Group had mutinied and captured the last of the Romanov’s who they kept awaiting trial for “crimes against the people”. A young charismatic sergeant from the city of Pskov, Volkov spoke before the men of the 2nd Army Group and declared that the People’s Revolutionary Council was merely a puppet of the Prussian state which sought to subjugate. And in some ways this accusation was true, other than the fact that Prussia had arranged for the transportation of the PRC from Switzerland to Russia. Rolinkov’s mother’s family were Volga Germans as was one of Vasilyev’s grandfather’s. Using his place of birth as a rallying point Volkov made the analogy that the People’s Revolutionary Council was merely the Teutonic Knights come again to ravage the Motherland and that all Russians must unite to fight against the Teutonic peril. And left unnoticed was Volkov's self-comparison to Saint Alexander Nevsky, or at least officially.




And with his speech to the soldiers of the 2nd Army Group the days of the People’s Revolutionary Council were coming to an end. Instead of executing the young Tsar as they had done with the majority of their officers the 2nd Army Group instead, led my Volkov crowned their young commander Tsar Peter IV, who at the age of 24 just took over one of the world’s largest states. Volkov also personally executed the representatives the People’s Revolutionary Council had sent to monitor the 2nd Army Group.




The young Tsar led the 2nd Army Group, more or less commanded by Volkov towards St. Petersburg [4]. During the trip to St. Petersburg several other units of the Imperial Army inspired by Volkov and Tsar Peter IV, who was being viewed as the Second Coming of Peter the Great, joined forces and under the command of Volkov, who was still nominally a sergeant smashed the People’s Revolutionary Army outside of St. Petersburg and proceeded to recapture the Winter Palace, which was temporarily being used as the Council’s seat until their planned move to Moscow the following year. By St. Valentine’s Day 1920 the Communist experiment was over. Marx and Engles were discredited and never to be seriously revived again.



The young Tsar and his newfound lieutenant, Volkov were faced with a difficult decision either to continue to fight and face an eventual slow defeat or to ask the Coalition for armistice. They chose the latter. Together both France and Russia formally sued for peace on February 19, 1920, a day which would become Veteran’s Day here in the Federal Kingdom.



[1] ATL brother of Niels Bohr.
[2] ATL analogue of Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov. Who in OTL was a son of Tsar Alexander II who was outlived by his father.
[3] The Federal Kingdom, United Kingdom, Prussia, The Dual Monarchy of Portugal and Brazil, the United Federal Kingdom of Gran Columbia, the Dominion of Patagonia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicily's, Hanover, the Netherlands, Saxony, Greece, Japan, and nominally the Ottoman Empire.
[4] Due to anti-Russian feelings in the FKA the German spelling is used.

[Wolf]

The history of relations between the American government and the various Native and Indio tribes has been a complex one from the beginning. This history obviously dates to the arrival of Columbus in 1492 and his interactions with Arawak Indians of Hispaniola. Other important early events would include Cortez’s conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521, and the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620 among many others.

The split between Native and Indio had not always existed. There was not much differentiation between any of the various “Red Indian” groups until after the War of Independence. Over time the two groups began to perceive themselves as two completely different groups of people.

The Natives saw themselves (and were recognized as such) as equal to whites. The Natives held posts in Parliament and in various Ministry’s. The held officer’s ranks in the Royal Army, the Royal American Navy, and the Royal American Marine Corps.

The Indios on the other hand were viewed as inferior barbarians by both whites and Natives. Although, the first voices for reform of relations with Indios came from the Native aristocracy (as well as a few Criollos and the rising Mestizo middle class in the Mexican provinces [more on this later])

But how did this differentiation come about? How did the Natives, namely the Haudenosaunee [1], the Shawnee, the Lenni Lenape [2], and several minor tribes, come to see themselves as different from other “Red Indians”? How did it come to pass that during the Wars of Settlement on the Plains of Platte and Assiniboia that scions of prominent Native families commanded cavalry troops alongside whites?

There are many possible factors that are agreed upon or rather not agreed upon by historians. One factor that is almost universally agreed upon to be the turning point in Native-White relations is Lord Dunmore’s War and the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774.

There on that fateful October afternoon, 1150 Virginian Militiamen, led by Colonel, later a Brigadier during the War of Independence, defeated a force of approximately 700[4] Shawnee and Mingo warriors at a crossing of the Ohio River at modern day Point Pleasant, Virginia [5]. The Shawnee and Mingo led by Hokoleskwa [6] attacked Colonel’s Lewis’ force near the point where the Kanawha River flows into the Ohio River. After several hours of intense fighting, Hokoleskwa retreated back across the Ohio.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_t0tVmrL9OvA/TFjRiOmhEPI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/0WEG03bgFis/s320/Cornstalk+Chief+Shawnee.jpg

Hokoleskwa

The fighting had been brutal and had lasted all day. Seventy-seven Virginians had been killed and 140 had been wounded, but both Colonel Lewis and his brother Charles survived. [7]

The Shawnee-Mingo force had suffered approximately thirty dead, including the militant leader, Weyapiersenwah. [8] It was not possible to calculate the total number of of Shawnee-Mingo dead as they would toss the bodies of dead warriors in the rier to skew the casualty count. Notably among the survivors was the Kispoko [9] chief, Puckeshinwa. [10]

Lewis and his men followed, closing within eight miles of the town of Scioto. On Sippo Creek, the Lewis brothers set up Camp Charlotte where they negotiated the Treaty of Camp Charlotte in the name of Virginia Governor John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore. Hokoleskwa was forced to sign the treaty which ceded all Shawnee claims to lands south of the Ohio River (present day Vandalia [11])


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/4thEarlOfDunmore.jpg/370px-4thEarlOfDunmore.jpg
Lord Dunmore




With the Battle of Point Pleasant and the signing of the Treaty of Camp Charlotte the Shawnees lost most of their will to fight Virginia. Many, if not most of their more militant leaders had been killed and after months of war they were weary and many sych as Puckeshinwa wanted to return home to see his young son, Tecumseh, and await the birth of his next child, Tenskwatawa.

For awhile the Shawnees would remain content until a chief Lenni Lenape approached them with an offer they couldn’t refuse....







[1] Iroquois Confederacy
[2] Delaware Tribe
[3] 1100 IOTL. While not an important or relevant butterfly it does reflect them
[4] Within the approximation of Chief Cornstalk’s strength in OTL.
[5] Point Pleasant, West Virginia IOTL. Spoiler Alert.
[6] Cornstalk
[7] IOTL seventy-five were killed and 150 were wounded. IOTL Charles Lewis was among the dead
[8] Blue Jacket. IOTL he survived the battle and was one of the more militant Shawnee leaders. He would later see the rise of Tecumseh and would die in 1810. With his death one of the more militant leaders of the Shawnee has been removed.
[9] A tribe in the Shawnee confederacy
[10] IOTL Puckeshinwa, father of Tecumseh, died during the Battle of Point Pleasant.
[11] OTL’s Kentucky

[Wolf]

Elsewhere in the world in 1774. All events mentioned here happened after the March 5 POD.

Boston Port Act is Passed on April 1. [1]

On April 17, the first Unitarian congregation is founded by Theophilus Lindsey

On May 8 Louis XVI becomes King of France [2]

The Intolerable Acts are passed on June 1. [3]

The Russo-Turkish War ends on July 21 with the passage of the Treaty of Kuchuck-Kainarji

On August 4, Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen for the third time. He will publish this fact in early 1776 and will get the credit. [4]

On September 5 the First Continental Congress assembles. (More on this later)

On September 21 George Mason and George Washington found the Fairfax County Militia Association, a military unit of British Control






[1] March 31 OTL. Assume a slight delay is due to the death of the Earl of Dartmouth.
[2] May 10 OTL.
[3] June 2 IOTL. More on this and the Port Act later.
[4] He published the results IOTL in 1775

[Wolf]

For our devoted viewers, the update on Ireland will be coming in the next couple of days.

Until then enjoy this:

King George I receiving court as he lays down the cornerstone for the new Parliament building in Washingtonia, the capitol city that bears his name.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/images/stories/large/2008/10/08/washington.JPG

[Wolf]

St. Patrick’s Lament: A History of Ireland (Dr. Armstrong Harrison, University of Wabash Press (2011), Vincennes, WB[1])



Ireland has had a history of crop failures and famines that have devastated the island realm. These famines, food shortages, and crop failures tended to happen every couple of decades, usually petering out after a couple of years of more normal weather patterns.

Unfortunately for the Land of St. Patrick the crop failures of 1774 and the famine that struck the Emerald Island in late 1774 and through 1775 was different. This time the food riots and skirmishes touched off a rebellion against English authority in Ireland. Unlike previous attempts to rebel against London this one was not a purely Catholic revolt.

1774 was an unusually rainy year across the British Isles and the rest of Northern Europe. Ireland suffered the worst effects of the rains. While organized weather records were not yet kept in the 1770’s modern day climatologists and meteorologists estimate that the amount of rain Ireland received would still stand as the record for annual rainfall to this day.

In a study conducted from 1996-2003 by Dr. Dandridge Knowles and a team of climatologists at the University of Mississippi deduced that the increased rainfall in North and Northwestern Europe was probably due to the climatic changes brought along by the Little Ice Age of 1400-1808.

Frosts combined with rain persisted until mid-April 1774, delaying the planting of the potato and oat crops across Ireland as well as the rest of Northern Europe. Once the frosts stopped in mid-April the plating began in a frantic manner so as to ensure that the oat crop would be ready harvest on-time before the first frosts of autumn.

By late June the longest that most of Ireland had seen without rain was a week and a half in late May. By this point the potato crop was no more than a month from being ready to harvest and store. Famers across Ireland began to notice that the leaves on many of their potato plants had small, dark lesions. Contemporary accounts speak of these lesions “turning black with death.”

Modern agronomists and mycologists believe that these lesions were caused by the fungal pathogen Alternaria solani or the early blight. A. Solani produces a disease in both tomatoes and potatoes, known as early blight. A. Solani generally occurs during the middle to late parts of the growing season and infection of leaf and stem tissues can occur in environments that have suffered heavy rains. Ireland in 1774 was a proverbial breeding ground for A. Solani and other fungal pathogens.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/images/3101_1.jpg

The oat crop was also effected by the unusually rainy year. A stem rust began to effect Irish oat crops in late July 1774. The rust was caused by the fungi Puccinia graminis f. sp. Avenae. While the infection of P. Graminis was not as severe as the infection of A. Solani, the decrease in the amount of food available to the vast majority of Irish peasants was already severely decreased.

By August it had become apparent that the potato harvest had been a failure and the oat harvest was just shy of a failure. When word of this reached London and more specifically the Ministry of Lord North, Lord North ordered Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk to begin to secure food stocks across Ireland, in part to prevent another famine similar to the Great Irish Famine of 1740-1741[2] occurred again as well as to ensure the Britain itself was well supplied with food. [3]

When word of this reached the Irish Parliament in response was at first muted by the all Anglican Anglo-Irish body, but dissent began to grow as many members began to feel that the North Ministry did not have the best interests of the Kingdom in mind. A group of MPs and peers led by Henry Flood and William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster began to protest the weight of English influence over Ireland and the negative impact it was having “upon free Protestants” as well as demanding reform to the Navigation Acts of 1712 as Irish merchants could not trade directly with other nations or even within the rest of the British Empire. Wool along with other Irish goods were banned from being exported. Many liberal members of the Irish Parliament were beginning to see the negative effects of these restrictions.

http://family-tree.co.uk/familyblogs/bessie/files/2010/03/rt-hon-henry-flood.jpg
Henry Flood


On October 12, 1774 the Leinster-Flood Proclamation was drafted by Parliament and addressed to Earl Suffolk. The demands of the Parliament in Dublin were simple:
1. Allow Dublin to directly control the export of food from Ireland to the rest of the British Isles and the British Empire.

2.Reform the Navigation Act of 1712 to allow for direct trade between Ireland and the British Empire.

3. Repeal the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719 to allow the Irish House of Lords more power to correct and amend the judgements made in Irish courts, which the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719 had prohibited, instead giving that power to the King with the advice and consent of the Parliament of Great Britain.


Support for the Proclamation was mixed with some members, most notably Richard Boyle, 2nd Earl of Shannon abstaining when the Proclamation was brought to a vote before Parliament.

As food stocks continued to decline many in Parliament began to worry that a famine would begin shortly or at the very least food riots would occur, despite the presence of British troops protecting the food exporting ports of Cork and Drogheda. Finally after weeks of dithering the Government of Lord North sent a reply back to the Irish Parliament and the increasing vocal MPs and Peers who began to refer to themselves as the Irish Patriots. The North Ministry beginning to see that it had jumped the gun by sending British soldiers in to secure the food supplies rejected the Proclamation stating that Ireland was dependent on Britain and any changes in the current relationship between Ireland and Great Britain would be the first step towards a return of Jacobitism and Popery.[4]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Gilbert_Stuart_(1755-1829)_-_Portrait_of_William_Robert_Fitzgerald,_2nd_Duke_o f_Leinster.jpg/220px-Gilbert_Stuart_(1755-1829)_-_Portrait_of_William_Robert_Fitzgerald,_2nd_Duke_o f_Leinster.jpg
William Robert Fitzgerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster


While Flood and Leinster began to debate what the next course of action would be they were introduced to a young lawyer by the name of Henry Grattan, by James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Caulfeild. Flood, Leinster, Grattan, and Caulfeild, together with John Hely-Hutchinson, John Talbot Dillon, and Charles FitzGerald, the younger brother of Leinster, formed the inner-circle of the Irish Patriots, where they were later joined by James Napper Tandy. They began to formulate the next steps they should take, but were at a loss. On December 23, 1774, two weeks after Suffolk and North rejected the Leinster-Flood Proclamation, Grattan introduced the Irish Patriots to a man by the name of Thomas Paine, who suggested a new course of action to the group that officially named themselves, The Society of United Irish Patriots[5].

On New Year’s Day 1775 the Patriots and their supporters seized Dublin Castle, raised the Harp Flag, beginning the New Year’s Rebellion of 1775.....

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/i/ie_1798b.gif




[1] Wabash OTL’s Indiana.
[2] Known as the Irish Famine of 1740-1741 IOTL. TTTL historians have just given it a different name. In Ireland and among pro-Irish Nationalists it is still known as Bliain an Áir, or “The Year of the Slaughter.”
[3] Since I have not figured out what the status of Ireland is come 2011 of TTTL, I’m not sure what bias the writer would have so I will note here that the latter was a higher concern for Lord North and Earl Suffolk than the previous after all most Irishmen are Catholic.
[4] While the author may or may not be pro-Ireland, most American academics ITTL disfavor Lord North and his government. The author reflects a prevailing view that the New Year’s Day Rebellion of 1775 could have been prevented had the Leinster-Flood Proclamation had been agreed to or at the very least throughly considered by the Parliament of Great Britain.
[5] A riff of sorts on the Society of United Irishmen of 1798 Rebellion fame.

[Wolf]

Can I at least see this inaccurate map?

Here it is:

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=72689&d=1246228609

Kentucky, called Cumberland here will be called Vandalia.

The Quebec/Labrador border is wrong, as is the Massachusetts/Nova Scotia border along with the Upper Canada Territory border.

[Wolf]

A mini-update where we meet a certain Messer. Paine.


From The Life and Times of Thomas Paine: Writer and Revolutionary (Sir Jackson Porter, Keswick Press, New York-1998)

By mid-1774 Thomas Paine was in poor shape. He had been fire by the excise service for being absent from his post without leave and his tobacco shop had failed. He was facing debtors prison, so in April he had sold off his household possessions to pay down his debts. In June he and his wife of three years, Elizabeth nee’ Olive formally separated and then moved to London from Lewes in East Sussex.

Suffering from what would now be termed by psychologists as chronic depression, he took to drinking to drown his woes. He was unsure of what he should do next with his life. One night while dining with George Lewis Scott, Commissioner of the Excise, Fellow of the Royal Society and a mathematician suggested that Paine emigrate to Britain’s American colonies and start life anew across the Atlantic. Paine at the very least was intrigued by the idea. Scott offered to set up a meeting between Paine and a Pennsylvanian named Benjamin Franklin, who was on an extended trip to Britain at the time.

Paine accepted Scott’s offer and agreed to meet with Benjamin Franklin the next day, with promises that Scott would see to it that Franklin wrote Paine a letter of recommendation, that would help him find gainful employment in Philadelphia. Many alternative historians have speculated what would have happened had Thomas Paine indeed met with Franklin. This was not to be. As Paine proceed to the club where he was to meet Franklin, he stopped by a tavern next to the house he was residing in for a quick drink and to wait for the rain to let up.

By chance he happened to sit next to a sailing master from an Irish merchant vessel that was bringing grain to London from the port city of Cork. The sailing master who happened to be married to the sister of a Dublin lawyer named Henry Grattan mentioned to Paine the debates in the Irish Parliament and Dublin Castle about the impending food crisis in Ireland and the concerns by the Duke of Leinster and others that the North Government was not doing what was need to prevent a repeat of the Great Famine of 1740-41.

Paine, who had always had an ear for politics bought the sailing master a drink and urged him to tell him more about the debate in Dublin, forgetting about his meeting with George Scott and Benjamin Franklin. By the end of the evening Paine was convinced his duty was to go to Ireland and aid them in whatever ways he could. If nothing else, perhaps he would be able to get a new job in the excise service with his new made connection.

The sailing master promised to take Paine with him as he and his ship returned to Ireland and introduce him to his brother-in-law, who had enough influence to get Paine a job. Britain's American colonies were forgotten in Paine's mind.

Three days later he set sail for Cork and Ireland, forever altering the course of history not just for Ireland, but for the rest of the world.

[Wolf]

Here's a teaser:

A list of the future Proconsuls of the Federal Kingdom of America. Note there are no guarantees that this will remain canon of course.

King George I 1785-1805, House of Washington

Guy Carleton, 1st Duke of Trois-Rivieres (No party) 1785-1805

King Alexander I 1805-1830, House of Hamilton

Guy Carleton, 1st Duke of Trois-Rivieres (No Party) 1806

John Adams, 1st Duke of Braintree (Democrat-Conservative) Party) 1806-1808

Henry Grattan, 1st Marquess of Kildare (Liberal Whig Party) 1808-1816

James Monroe, 1st Viscount of Shenandoah (Liberal Whig) 1816-1820

John Quincy Adams, 2nd Duke of Braintree (Conservative) 1820-1824

Sir Andrew Jackson, MP for Nashville, (later 1st Marquess Hermitage) (Democratic-Liberal Whig Coalition) 1824-1830


King Phillip I 1830-1860

Andrew Jackson, 1st Marquess Hermitage (Liberal Whig) 1830-1833

Daniel Webster, MP for Portsmouth (later Baron of Exeter), (Conservative) 1833-1836

John Calhoun, Earl of Clemson, (Democrat-Conservative Coalition) 1836-1838

Sir Henry Clay, MP for Lexington, (Later 1st Earl Lexington) (Liberal Whig) 1838-1843

William Henry Harrison, 1st Earl of Vincennes, (Liberal Whig) 1843-1846

Henry Clay, 1st Earl of Lexington (Liberal Whig) 1846-1850* Died in office

Daniel Webster, 1st Baron of Exeter (Conservative) 1850-1853* Died in Office

Zachary Taylor, 1st Earl of Spencer (Conservative) 1853-1855* Died in office

Millard Fillmore MP for Cayuga (American-Conservative coalition) 1855-1857

John Tyler, Baron of Walnut Grove (Conservative) 1857-1858

Lewis Cass, MP for Detroit (Liberal Whig-Popular Sovereignty Coalition) 1858

Martin Van Buren, MP for Kinderhook, 1st Baronet, later 1st Baron of Kinderhook, (Free Soil-Liberal) 1858-1859

William Alexander George Graham, MP for Orange County, (Conservative-Unionist Whig) 1859-1860

King George II 1860-1876, Emperor Jorge I of Mexico

James Buchanan, MP for Cove Gap, (Conservative Unionist-Whig Unionist-American-Popular Sovereignty Coalition) 1860

War of Rebellion Begins

John A. Macdonald, MP for Washington [1], later 1st Marquess of Washington, (Liberal-Free Soil Coalition) 1860-1862* Assassinated

Abraham Lincoln, MP for Springfield, later 1st Earl of Springfield, (Republican-Liberal Union Coalition) 1862-1866

Stephen Douglas, 1st Baron of Chicago, 1866-1869 (Popular Conservative-Liberal Republican Coalition)

War of Rebellion ends.

Robert E. Lee, 1st Marquess of Arlington, 2nd Baron of Stratford, (Liberal Republican) 1869-1874

Charles Francis Adams, 3rd Duke of Braintree, (Liberal Republican) 1874-1876


[1]OTL's Kingston, Ontario

[Wolf]

St. Patrick’s Lament: A History of Ireland (Dr. Armstrong Harrison, University of Wabash Press (2011), Vincennes, WB)

January 1, 1775 was in respects like any other day. In Dublin it was a cloudy and cold day, except it wasn’t. Dublin Castle had been seized by the Society of United Irish Patriots. Many of the conservative, anti-reform, anti-Catholic, pro-Dependency Act, and pro-Poyning’s Law MP’s had fled, or were fleeing, for their country estates, Ulster, or Britain itself.

The Society was unsure of what it next moves should be. That is when the unofficial triumvirate of the 2nd Duke of Leinster, Henry Flood, and Henry Grattan, turned to Grattan’s new friend Thomas Paine. Paine suggested that the Society should reach out to the Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to increase the scope of the rebellion and increase the chances that Ireland would win either freedom from Britain or greater autonomy at the very least.

Several ideas came to the forefront of the Society’s meeting. The first to announcement was the gradual reform of Poyning’s Law, as well at the 1673 and 1678 Test Acts, allowing Catholics and Protestant Dissenters who met the property requirements of forty shillings to vote, but notably not stand for Parliament. While Paine and Grattan were favour of allowing Catholic and Protestant Dissenters to stand for Parliament, not enough members of the Society were, and Grattan fearing dividing the Society early on, went along without the full Catholic Emancipation he favored. Most notably opposed to Catholic Emancipation was Henry Flood. The Triumvirate also announced that the stores of grain in ports of Cork and Drogheda would be seized and distributed to the general populace, a move that when announced became very popular across Ireland.

The Society, combined with a quickly organized mob of Catholics, Dissenters, and not a few Anglicans, and members of militias from the County of Kildare, commanded by the Duke himself were able to overwhelm the reduced English troop presence in Dublin. Only a company of the 13th Regiment of Foot[1] was in Dublin at the time, with the rest of the regiment guarding the grain stocks in Cork and Drogheda.

In the coming days the rest of Leinster was in rebellion, the notable exception being the port of Drogheda. By January 10th Munster had also risen up. The 2nd Duke of Leinster commanding his Kildare and other Leinster militias, alongside hastily organized militias marched on Cork. On January 18, 1775, he defeated a battalion and a half’s worth of men, plus a local militia of loyalist and the 13th Regiment in the town itself. In the Battle of Cork, Leinster lost approximately half his men, as he was not a trained military commander, nor did he have properly organized forces, but that would not matter, his 1,100 men outnumbered the 350 of the 13th.

At Drogheda, the Irish Rebels met with less success. The majority of the 13th had been stationed there as Drogheda had been the scene of food riots during the food shortages of 1740-41. The 13th managed to repulse several rebel attacks, with the help of the HMS Thunderer and its contingent of marines, which happened to be in port at the time of the attack. This would the beginning of the end of the New Year’s Rebellion of 1775.

As the rebellion spread to Galway in Connaught and Armagh and Tyrone in Ulster, in London Lord North and his ministers began to prepare to crush the rebellion. Lord North, along with the Earl of Suffolk, the Northern Secretary and Lord Germain, the Colonial Secretary favoured a swift response to the rebellion and harsh punishments for the ringleaders. While a majority of Parliament were more or less in favour of this proposal, there were several notable members of Parliament who dissented or were even supportive of the rebellion. The most notable member of this faction was Charles James Fox.

Fox firmly believed that the Society of United Irish Patriots were merely securing their fundamental rights to freedom and upholding “good Whig principles.” He called upon Suffolk to negotiate with the Society and for Parliament to agree to the terms of the Leinster-Flood proclamation. Fox stated that the North Ministry “blundered their way into the current crisis and will continue to blunder their way to it’s conclusion”

Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl of Harcourt and current Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, while not going to the extremes that Fox and his faction of Parliament went to in terms of supporting the Rebellion and the Society did urge a more moderate response. Harcourt knew both Leinster and Flood and believed that a reasonable compromise could be reached between Dublin Castle and St. James. Unfortunately for Ireland this was not to be so.

Lord North, with the backing of King George III, declared that the Rebellion was to be crushed and the members of the Society were to be hung as traitors, declaring that“treason and rebellion are noxious weeds, if allowed to grow, will destroy the garden that is Britain.” To this end the 22nd Regiment of Foot [2], the 7th (Royal Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot [3], the 43rd Mommouthsire Regiment of Foot [4], and the 29th Worcestershire Regiment of Foot [5], to deploy to Ireland and end the Rebellion, under the command of General William Howe, a veteran of General Wolfe’s campaign in Quebec during the Seven Year’s War.

While General Howe’s troops began their preparations for deployment to Ireland, the Rebellion began to have problems of its own. Outside of the terms of the Leinster-Flood Proclamation the Society had general agreement on what to do after the Rebellion ended. Some members like Henry Grattan and the Duke of Leinster wanted more freedom for Ireland and reform for Catholics and Dissenters, while others, most of whom had come under the influence of Tom Paine, wanted a complete break from Britain and the declaration of a Republic.

Another major point of contention between the growing factions of the Society of United Irish Patriots was what later historians were term the “Catholic issue.” Except for a few conservative Anglicans most of the Society’s members wanted to amend the Test Acts and Poyning’s Law to allow propertied Catholics (and Dissenters) to vote if they met the forty shilling requirement. Catholic and Dissenter leaders wanted the reforms to go further. They wanted Catholics and Dissenters who were eligible to be able to vote to also be eligible to stand for Parliament, instead of voting for liberal reform minded Anglicans. Tom Paine, being one of, if not the most radical member of the Society was in favour of this, as were Painites in the Society. Grattan and Leinster fearing for the stability of the fragile Rebellion began to broker a compromise, when word came in from Drogheda, General Howe had landed.

On February 3, 1775, General Howe and his force landed in the port of Drogheda, which due to the stand of the 13th Regiment of Foot and HMS Thunderer, and her Marine contingent, had remained in Loyalist hands. The countryside outside of Drogheda was loosely controlled by the Society and other bands of Irish rebels. Here in the County of Louth the first of what contemporary Irish Nationalists and academics, along with liberal American and British academics would term atrocities, indeed in his later years, General Howe would regret his actions. Indeed, not a few military historians would see the crushing of the Rebellion as the beginning of the decline of the “era of gentlemanly warfare” in Europe. During the height of the French Revolutionary Wars in the Germanies, many a German denizen would regret the lesson the French Republican troops picked up from Howe’s systematic repression of the New Year’s Day Rebellion. Of course the French actions against German partisans would be met with even greater ferocity, but that is outside the scope of the text.

One technique used by British troops that became particularly famous, was the technique of half-hanging. In half-hanging, a rope is pulled tightly across the neck of the victim and then loosened when the victim becomes unconscious. The victim is then revived and the process is repeated. While there are no confirmed numbers of how many rebels, or any individuals suspected of being rebels or rebel sympathizers (Indeed many a grudge between neighbors was permanently settled in this way), who were half-hanged, it is estimated that several hundred up to a thousand or so were.

When word of the use of half-hanging and other methods of torture reached Dublin Castle, Tom Paine began to print pamphlets spreading the word of British brutality in the Counties Louth and Meath, which temporarily ended the disputes between the Anglicans, Dissenters, and Catholics, as all sides hunkered down to fight the British or fled the city of Dublin for Waterford and Cork in Munster. Some of these pamphlets even made their way to France, which would have consequences down the road.

When word of the various methods used by General Howe’s troops reached Thomas Carleton, (who had returned early from wintering in St. Petersburg), in Strabane in the County of Tyrone in Ulster, he decided to get his family out of Ireland, lest they inadvertently be mistaken for rebels. He sent his family, and those of his brother and nephew to Quebec, where his brother Guy Carleton was Governor. He and his nephew Christopher Carleton headed to Dublin to try to convince Leinster and the Society to make a peace with London. On his way to Dublin he kept notes of the actions of both the rebels and General Howe’s troops. In particular his account of the Battle of Dublin is still read today in many universities in the Federal Kingdom. He noted the, “bravery in which the Irish fight.” Witnessing the atrocities first hand he felt his loyalty to London and King George begin to waver, even though he never became a rebel himself. In his private journals he wrote that the methods used by the British soldiers reminded of what he witnessed as he observed while observing the Russian Army while it was fighting the Ottoman Turks along the Lower Danube.

After Howe’s defeat of the Irish rebels, north of Dublin, the Society fled to the city of Cork in Munster, even the most steadfast Painites realized staying in Dublin would be futile and also possibly life shortening. During this march to the south and west of the island, Carleton met Leinster, Flood, and Grattan and began to discuss with them the reasons for their rebellion and general political philosophy. By the time they had arrived in Cork he began to sympathize with the Society even more, even if he did not personally favour rebelling against the King.

On March 17, 1775, the Society made it’s last stand on a field northeast of Cork. On the tragically ironic day for Ireland, they were defeated and most of their host was killed, including Henry Flood. In response Carleton offered to take Grattan and Leinster, and other members of the Society to Quebec and North America, where they could hope to hide out for some time. Both Grattan and Leinster accepted. About one-third of the Society departed for Quebec, while the hardcore Painites left for France, who was more than happy to accept anyone who could be used to potentially take the hated British down a peg or two.

On April 4, 1775, Carleton and his newfound friends arrived in Quebec and North America where an interesting series of events was unfolding....







[1] OTL’s The Rifles
[2] OTL’s The Cheshire Regiment
[3] OTL’s Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
[4] OTL’s The Riflers
[5] OTL’s Mercian Regiment

[Wolf]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Hanging.gif

General Howe's troops half-hang a member of the Society of United Irish Patriots.

[Wolf]

Part VII: You Say You Want A Revolution....

The Royal Harvard History of the War of Independence by William Parnall, Royal Harvard Press-Cambridge, MA 1999


On April 4, 1775 Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Carleton, his nephew Captain Christopher Carleton, Henry Grattan, The 2nd Duke of Leinster, and their families arrived in the city of Quebec in British Canada fleeing the aftermath of the New Year’s Day Rebellion of 1775. There Lieutenant Colonel Carleton introduced Grattan and Leinster to his brother Colonel Guy Carleton, the British Governor of Quebec, although for how long only God and Lord Germain knew.

The Carletons along with Leinster and Grattan spent most of the 4th and the 5th discussing the Rebellion in Ireland in detail from the Leinster-Flood Proclamation down to General Sir William Howe[1] heavy-handed suppression of the rebellion on the orders of King George III, Lord North, and the 12th Earl of Suffolk despite protests by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the 1st Earl of Harcourt and liberal members of Parliament led by Charles James Fox, MP for Midhurst. Carleton already feeling quite frustrated with the Ministry of Lord North became almost angry after hearing his brother’s accounts of Howe’s method’s. He left the meetings with his brother and Leinster and Grattan quite troubled with the situation in London and his native Ireland.

If we are to consider a psychological profile of Colonel Carleton one could easily say that his mind was ripe to be shaped a molded by an influential man....


Henry Grattan: A Life by Henry William Robert Grattan, the 7th Marquess of Kildare, Harcourt Press-Kildare, ON 2010 [2]

....After the end of the first day of meetings with Carleton, Grattan retired to a tavern in central Quebec City, where he sat down for a drink and began conversing with a man sitting next to him, who spoke with an accent which was peculiar to Grattan’s ears.
The man was John Brown, from the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence. Brown had been sent to Quebec by Samuel Adams and Dr. Joesph Warren, both of the Massachusetts Committee, to begin to open communications with those who would be interested in taking up the Patriot Cause.
He had arrived in the City of Quebec the previous day on a ship sailing from Yarmouth present day Arcadia [3], and had been planning on departing for Montreal early the next morning when he had stopped for a meal and and drink in a tavern in what is now downtown Quebec City.
In fact in 1876 when a new Provincial Parliament building was being constructed, the remains of a tavern cum inn were discovered and was thought by historians brought in from the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres to be Brown and Grattan’s Tavern, the original name being forgotten in the dustbin of history, regrettably. Interestingly enough several bottles of wine and other liquors were discovered during the construction. Several of the bottles of the wine discovered by the construction crew still sit in wine cellars of some of the Federal Kingdom’s more prominent terroirs and some of the eminent families of Quebec as well as the Royal Family. Oenology aside....
Grattan and Brown spent several hours discussing the Rebellion in Ireland and the Leinster-Flood Proclamation, as well as the closure of the Port of Boston via the Boston Port Act that had been pushed through Parliament by Lord North and approved of by King George III along with the latest Brown had heard from the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Grattan and Brown both began to see the parallels that led caused the Rebellion in Ireland, but this time if it came to Rebellion it would occur not across the Irish Sea, but across the Atlantic.
That was not to say that Grattan was hungry for rebellion against Britain, as much as he felt that he had no other recourse. The Ministry of Lord North did not seem to be willing to do anything to mitigate the grievances of either Ireland or the North American Colonies and it seemed to have popular support too, with the only notable individuals opposing Lord North being the moderate William Pitt the Younger and the radical Charles James Fox.
Before Grattan retired for the night he agreed to introduce Brown to the Duke or Leinster and even possibly Governor Guy Carleton. When he returned to the residence Carleton was using as his official residence and where he and Leinster were guests he spoke with Leinster and updated him on the events transpiring to the south in Massachusetts as well as in Philadelphia.
After consulting with Leinster and Thomas Carleton, Grattan introduced John Brown to Guy Carleton. Much to the mutual surprise of both men, they seemed to have a common view on the issues affecting Britain and her North American colonies. Brown informed Carleton, to a fairly great risk as he later recorded in his personal journal, that a Second Continental Congress was forming in Philadelphia.
Guy Carleton was initially reluctant to attend the Congress, he was still after a loyal subject of his majesty and the Congress could be misconstrued as treason, especially by his enemies in Parliament such as Lord Germain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It was his brother Thomas that encouraged him by saying, “No great harm has ever come of talking, brother of mine, this is not Dublin, and from what Mister Brown has told us these men, although they call themselves Patriots do not appear to be advocating independence from Britain.”
With that Governor Carleton made his decision, he would go to Philadelphia himself and attend the Congress. He asked that his brother attend with him as well as the Duke of Leinster and Henry Grattan so they could offer their insight. His nephew, Captain Christopher Carleton would come along as well as the Governor’s official secretary, and indeed it is the writings of Captain Carleton that are referenced by many historians today when they seek to understand the mindset of the Second Continental Congress. John Brown, on the other hand decided to continue on with his tour of British Canada and departed for Halifax in Nova Scotia and the new town of Charlottetown, the capital of St. John’s Island.
Carleton, his brother Thomas, his nephew, Christopher, Henry Grattan, and the Duke of Leinster departed on a ship bound for New York and overland from there to Philadelphia and the Second Continental Congress. John Brown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts also left Quebec, but bound to Halifax. The date was April 18, 1775 and down south in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts events were unfolding....


The 15th Colony: Nova Scotia and the War for Independence by H.N. McCall, University of Nova Scotia Press-Halifax, 1978 [4]


Nova Scotia, at the time of the Battles of Concord and Lexington was demographically more similar to New England than it was to Quebec, in that the bulk of it’s population was made up of Anglo-Saxon Protestants, with a smaller number of immigrants from Ireland brought to Nova Scotia by men like Alexander McNutt.
Therefore it was not surprising that Nova Scotia joined the Rebellion and sent representatives to the Second Continental Congress, albeit belatedly. The most famous of the Patriot leaders in Nova Scotia being the Reverend Henry Alline and the prominent Halifax merchant, Rupert Reilly. These two men had very different motivations for wanting independence from Britain, but as the old adage goes, war makes for very strange bedfellows....
....Allline was born into an old stock New England family, which proudly traced its roots back to the Mayflower, in Newport Rhode Island in June 1748. In 1760 at the age of 12 his family along with over one hundred other inhabitants of Connecticut and Rhode Island moved to a land grant on the north bank of the Avon River, giving birth to the town of Falmouth, today known for being home to the Alline Theological College and the Nova Scotia Agricultural and Mechanical University, or Nova Scotia A&M as it is vernacularly known.
Alline had always had an interest in Christianity and the tents of Christian education. On a cold, rainy, and blustery day in late March 1775 he returned to his home after spending several hours wandering the fields surrounding the burgeoning community of Falmouth, and opened his Bible and turned to Pslam 38. Shortly thereafter he read a copy of a letter sent by the First Continental Congress beseeching Nova Scotia to send delegates to the Congress in Philadelphia [5]. He later recorded in a diary entry that he felt “...the word of God enter him and shepherding him into a new calling...” His new calling of course would be revolution and what he called “a crusade against the tyranny of British rule in America. A holy war to restore the rights God himself has granted to all men, but that have been usurped by false men pretending to be followers of our Lord for their own gain.” After several days of intense writing he fell asleep and awoke a day later a changed man, with renewed vigor. Little did he know how his soul which burned with fury would one day cause the entire world to burn, many, many years later when a troubled French art student would pick up his writings in a cafe almost a century and a half later....
....Nova Scotia’s second flame of revolution started in Halifax. Many of Halifax’s wealthy merchant class were just as unhappy with the Navigation Acts as there peers in Boston. When Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence member John Brown of Pittsfield arrived in Halifax many of the merchants were perfectly happy to hear him out, especially given the unpopularity of Nova Scotia’s Royal Governor, Francis Legge. Both the Assembly and Council opposed Governor Legge and when word of the Congress to the South reached their ears, they were more than happy to act. Many alternate historians speculate that had a different Royal Governor been sent to Nova Scotia the merchant oligarchy and certainly the Council and Assembly would not have been moved to revolution in the same way the common people were by the words of Reverend Henry Alline and the early days of the Revolution would have been a great deal more bloody....
Within weeks of Brown’s arrival in the colony the Assembly and Council voted overwhelmingly to send delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, several weeks later St. John’s Island voted likewise.
From Georgia in the South to Quebec and Nova Scotia in the North, the War for Independence was beginning....





[1]Howe was knighted for his actions in putting down the 1775 New Year’s Day Rebellion.
[2] OTL's Toronto, ON
[3] OTL’s Maine and New Brunswick
[4] Quebec being the 14th and St. John’s Island (OTL’s Prince Edward Island being the 16th
[5] In OTL letters were sent by the First Continental Congress to Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, but only Quebec received it’s letter.