#1: Can He Fix It? Corsican!
In early 1767, not long into his second ministry, William Pitt suffered a further breakdown in his physical health. Deciding that he was no longer capable of carrying on government, and realising the terrible divergences in interests in his Cabinet, he tendered his resignation to the King [1].
George III was now in a quandary. He didn't want Rockingham with his hostility to the monarch's involvement in the government's affairs back in power. But equally, choosing a Tory from amongst Parliament's ranks would rancour with a Whig dominated body, and be seen as a terrible example of monarchical tyranny.
Faced with little alternative, the King took the radical step of calling a general election. While it wouldn't be held in all constituencies, it would shake up the seats and hopefully produce a faction strong enough for him to put in power without producing too much controversy.
The general election was carried out with the usual levels of corruption and back-room deals which characterised British politics at that time, and as the first election held since Britain's tremendous victory in the Seven Years' War, returned the Whigs to power. Not that that in itself meant much as by this point the Whigs were more like a collection of separate factions gravitating around particular personalities.
The last act of the previous government had been the introduction of the so-called Towshend Acts which had been very poorly received by the Americans. This would obviously be a major cause of concern for whoever took the reins of the new government. To George's dissappointment, the largest and most cohesive faction which emerged were the ones around Lord Rockingham.
Rockingham set about forming a conciliation with the American colonies, and invited the ailing Lord Chatham to informal discussions. During Rockingham's ministry from 1767 to 1774, the prospect of American MPs being represented in Parliament wasn't taken very seriously. Rockingham was determined that Parliament's right to legislate in America was absolute, and that this included the raising of revenues. But at the same time, he was nervous of antagonising the increasingly restive colonies.
In 1768, a seminal moment of Rockingham's career arrived. The Corsican Crisis emerged over the sale of the island of Corsica to France. The thing that made this a Crisis, was that was another party involved. The Corsicans themselves. They had set up a somewhat shaky republic, which was what had triggered the Genoan decision to sell the island when they found they couldn't effectively put the rebellion down.
The French purchase, and the ensuing counter-rebellion moves set off a diplomatic row across Europe. Into which Britain, the ascendant power of the world with its naval domination, stepped. Rockingham led Britain alongside other Mediterranean states like Sardinia in a textbook example of gunboat diplomacy. With France's finances in a poor state, they couldn't risk buying the island only to have to fight for it in an expensive war. They backed down and refused to purchase the island. Corsica became a de facto British protectorate, and both Genoa and France were compensated for their loss.
The satisfactory conclusion to the crisis had a number of consequences. Rockingham won over the support of the wider public, which strengthened his somewhat tenuous grip on power and affirmed the Rockinghamites as the strongest faction of the Whigs. It also allowed Britain to form an alliance with Russia, getting it the continental ally that it had sorely lacked since the end of the Seven Years' War. Finally, it won over many American intellectuals who may have taken a more extreme path had they not seen British arms used in support of 'liberty'.
In 1770, a similar strategy again triumphed in the Falklands Crisis. The Spanish attempted to claim the Falklands Islands, and tried to invoke the Bourbon Family Compact. British MPs, their patriotic pride inflamed, threatened war. Louis XV backed down, and the Spanish rapidly ceded control of the islands to Britain. This also had a number of effects. British pride was further bolstered, and more importantly, it was bolstered in the Americas. The French and the Spanish had been divided, and the French grew increasingly bitter about the strength of British actions.
But from 1770 to 1774, Rockingham's ascent was challenged by noises in America [2]. Rockingham had maintained duties on tea, and riots had broken out because of it. He had to deal with Governor's who took draconian measures to deal with rioters which only inflamed the situation. An attempt to reduce the price of tea to undercut Dutch smugglers only worsened the situation as it looked like the British were simply milking their colonial subjects to feed the East India Company. An event known as the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773, in which Bostonites threw British tea into the harbour. Rockingham reacted by passing a law which allowed Britain to clamp down on civil disturbances far more effectively. However, the actual effect was to worsen the situation.
He won the general election in 1774, and at this point the idea of a more vigorous conciliation with Americans was mooted. The Earl of Chatham again emerged as a major advocate for the Americans, and many Americans resident in London also cropped up offering their own views. Britain was lucky in that the Rockinghamite Whigs were prominent in their support for reconciliation and compromise with the Americans, within the bounds of the British Constitution.
In 1775, a Convention was held in Britain taking in representatives from each colony in British America. A deal was hammered out over the following weeks. To Chatham's consternation, Rockingham allowed a loosening of the trade laws which had so raised American hackles, allowing British governments to raise taxes in America. As well as taxes raised directly, each colony retained their right to raise their own taxes for their own use. Each colony would receive a stipend from Britain to fund local government. Payment of public officials in the colonies would come directly from the Crown, rather than from colonial governments. Each colony would be represented in Parliament by two MPs, though they would have a special right to sit in Parliament even after removed from office, until their replacement arrived. Certain boroughs would also be given representation in Parliament with two MPs apiece. The final provision was for the admission of peers from the colonies. Each colony would nominate 'two notable individuals of venerable colonial heritage who have made a great contribution to their colony'. After that, titles would be dispensed in the usual fashion.
Other provisions included the rescinding of the 1763 Proclamation that bound colonial frontiers at the Appalachians, and the creation of Indian protectorates within colonial boundaries. The creation of new colonies was reserved for the British government.
[1] Our POD
[2] There are a lot of things which haven't occurred in TTL as opposed to OTL. No Continental Congress, though there are Committees of Correspondence. No Intolerable Acts, only one Intolerable Act. No Boston Massacre. Generally, British-American relations are better, and if a revolution was to occur in TTL, it would take place in the early 1780s to allow for worsening of relations to the point that Americans decide they need independence.
