Fair points. However, the British do have a huge, and increasing, population advantage over French America. They would surely reach a tipping point. As counter-examples, during the Seven Year's War the British managed to take Cuba, Philippines, Senegal and various French Caribbean islands with amphibious operations.
They only managed to take a small part of Cuba. Senegal was three small forts in the suburbs of Dakar, apart for Martinique, and Barbados, nobody bothered to defend the lesser Antilles and they changed hands regularly, and the Philippines were a generally undefended province.
Not all of Africa, no. But the money made from India surely helped the British in their efforts to colonise Egypt for example. Did losing Silesia strengthen or weaken Austria's attempts to expand into Bavaria? Did the Spanish capture of mesoamerica hinder or help their attempts to get the Philippines? Did France losing its holdings in India speed or slow its expansion into other parts of Asia? I would argue the latter in all cases.
In order
- Not really, that was military conquest and "colonization" never really happened. Egypt was a british puppet state with only Sudan as a colony. India did give the impetus for it, as Britain was seeking a more reliable route to do it than its network of desolate islands and then a long stretch of sea (until they conquered Mauritius and the Seychelles)
- This has little to do with the point at hand, but I'll go with strengthen, since they did expand into Bavaria afterwards, grabbing the Innviertel (and other traditionally bavarian territories; Salzburg should have been Bavarian, for example)
- Again, I'm not sure what the point is, but for the record, both France and the UK only really started to expand in South East Asia during the 1880s, after the scramble for Africa had started. Both sides also started doing the Oceanian protectorates game in the 1840s, and protectorates generally only lasted so long as one side had ships in harbor at the polynesian capitals.
I appreciate there can be a zero-sum game to these things when colonies became a sink for resources (like the European empires did when independence movements kicked off). This would probably be the case with the thirteen colonies had they been subjugated by force during the ARW. But if the war was simply averted, and the population remained loyal, they would contribute to the empire in terms of both men and finance. That helps further expansion, IMHO.
They're still going to cost money for defence, administration, etc. Especially considering that there are at least three colonies which aren't going to abolish slavery on their own.
Yes, I agree the Cape colony is not easy for the British to take, or have the willingness to do so. But my argument was where, ideally, would they want to be, if they could. As for New Orleans, I would say the British navy was a lot stronger at the end of the 18th century than it was sixty years earlier.
And I'm sure the Argentines are very proud of kicking their asses sixty years later if they were that much stronger. I'll also add Toulon and Santa Cruz de Tenerife to the list of the glorious royal navy's debacles in the era (1793 and 1797; Nelson even commanded at Santa Cruz).
Again, tend to agree. I think the British might would ideally want to capture rich trade ports on the coast, like New Orleans and Veracruz, but would happily leave the interior in French/Spanish/Native hands.
It's not about what they want, it's about what they can do and hold on to. If the British act like they did after 1763, they will get the same diplomatic deal as they got in 1776, whether the americans want to separate or not: for a quick recap
- Pacte de Famille plus the Netherlands at war against Britain
- First League of Armed Neutrality, with Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Prussia, and quite willing to shoot at British ships.
Veracruz and New Orleans are not Gibraltar, they're provincial capitals (Gibraltar was a fishing village nobody gave a damn about).
What more, there is no guarantee that the French revolution will happen within the same timeframe or with the same political results: the french navy before the revolution had quite enough personnel and ships to complement Spain and the Netherlands into a solid anti-british coalition if they weren't busy dealing with more important matters in Europe.
Agreed. There would be both less immigration to a British America, and more disagreement, possibly conflict, with the British coastal colonies, and an illegally settled, often non-British interior.
A Yankee Trek of sorts would be interesting. I could also see a number of Emigres settling not only in the interior, but in Upper Louisiana, and potentially in the spanish colonies or, hell, France. The repercussions for things like the Mexican and first Colombian revolutions could be interesting .