Any way for Britain to reconquer America?

I think for this to happen, you need a sizable body of Americans who are calling on the British to intercede. My thought is that if the British pressed less hard and ended the war sooner you'd have more disaffected loyalists still on the ground and still somewhat feisty. Combine that with radicalism getting out of hand/gaining the upper hand and you might get a number of the Founder types and a substantial body of OTL rebels calling on the Brits to intercede and cooperating with them when they invade.

So, two different trends from OTL: (1) an easier, shorter Revolution that beats down or drives out the loyalists less than OTL combined with (2) radicalism getting out of hand a la the French Revolution.

Actually, No. 2 might be enough by itself.
 
Care to share some of those sources? Because I've never heard that, not even once.

EDIT: Also, by 1780, the British hadn't held Philadelphia for more than a year.

I have to admit that it is hard to find sources on the Internet. There is the George Washington Papers, which states this: "Washington now believed that it was critical for the United States and its French allies to achieve a significant military victory in 1781 or all might be lost because of the state of American public opinion."

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classro...ctivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/peace/

The book, "The French in North America" states Rochambeau's and his opinion was that the Rebels were going to give up. The author, Eccles, draws from Rochambeau's correspondance to the French government as his source. He also says that anglophone book "the War for America 1775-1783" also used it as a source.

Eccles also states that it was Le Luzerne's opinion as well and states from his correspndance with Vergennes as his source. Le Luzerne was the French ambasssador to the Rebels, and Vergennes the French foreign minister. In the papers, Le Luzerne talked about how the Continental Congress tried to raise taxes to keep the armies fighing. But state delegates refused, particularly the ones from Rhode Island, Virginia and New York. The latter stated why they should pay taxes when they just revolted against the British Parliament for the same reason. They accused France of trying to get them out of England's clutches and putting them into the revolting yoke of a Virginia farmer. As usual, France had to pay to keep the Rebel armies together and to keep on fighting.

So, maybe Britain wasn't really so oppressive and the king wasn't really tyrannical after all as long as the Americans don't have to pay taxes at all! This no-taxes-without-representation thing that was the cuase of the Revolution was just an excuse. It should read: no-taxes-period.
 
That would make sense with fifteen or twenty thousand men between the two generals - not enough to hold any given point firmly and have men left over - but less so with thirty thousand troops in the thirteen colonies (I am presuming we're meant to believe Canada isn't counted).


The book is a little confusing. In a later section, Canada is included in the count. It says that the British had 30,000 troops in North America, stationed in Quebec, Nova Scotia, New York, Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine. Maybe Clinton and Cornwallis commanded all of them.
 
The book is a little confusing. In a later section, Canada is included in the count. It says that the British had 30,000 troops in North America, stationed in Quebec, Nova Scotia, New York, Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine. Maybe Clinton and Cornwallis commanded all of them.

I believe, but would have to be check to be 100% sure of his authority, Clinton was technically commander of all of Britain's (land) forces in North America.

Does anyone else have a source on this sort of thing? Just to get a sense of how that 30,000 compares to something known to be more limited than North America.

I'm afraid I don't - I wish I did, but I don't have much on the AR from the British standpoint.
 
So, maybe Britain wasn't really so oppressive and the king wasn't really tyrannical after all as long as the Americans don't have to pay taxes at all! This no-taxes-without-representation thing that was the cuase of the Revolution was just an excuse. It should read: no-taxes-period.

anyone who has read the background to the war is skeptical about the 'taxation without representation' part of it. It wasn't really about taxes in specific, it was about Britain abandoning it's longstanding 'benign neglect' of the colonies and actually trying to rule the place. The colonies had been on their own and managing their own affairs that they were bound to be antagonistic to London finally getting around to noticing them. Several people back then predicted it would happen and advised London against doing it...
 
anyone who has read the background to the war is skeptical about the 'taxation without representation' part of it. It wasn't really about taxes in specific, it was about Britain abandoning it's longstanding 'benign neglect' of the colonies and actually trying to rule the place. The colonies had been on their own and managing their own affairs that they were bound to be antagonistic to London finally getting around to noticing them. Several people back then predicted it would happen and advised London against doing it...

To add to this, that's why the ARW was less of a revolution and more of a pure independence struggle as well. A lot of the democratic institutions had evolved organically into colonial society long ago. It's why the US was pretty stable after its victory when you compare it to when Latin America achieved their independence.
 
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