WI the American Revolution failed?

Well the most famous person arguing for not enforcing taxing them was Pitt the Elder.

That is, the opposition were opposed to the administration's policy? We've yet to here from anybody inside the North government, I believe.

As I said, see my reply to you're previous point.

Previous point, or previous post? I'm sorry, you've lost me. Could you restate? Sorry to be a duffer.

Why all that expense. All Britain wanted was for the colonies to start contributing to their own defence. They were aiming to cut expenditure not increase it. True the young George III was fairly eager to expand the position of the monarchy but he was more concerned with his power in Britain than in the colonies.

But they were all Britons in the colonies, apparently. :p In any case, the measures I am talking about are not golden calfs. As I said, there is already precedent for them in previous English history. On what grounds can we declare them more expensive than backing away from the mercantilist system and conceding British prestige?

Because other cases were either non European/non Protestants or were not ruled by Britain.

So the Americans are European? Um...

Also, the Ulster Presbyterians weren't having a wonderful time under the Ascendancy, and they were pretty Protestant.

Which quotes are you talking about? I think you made one single comment a couple of pages back.

There are more in the same book, though I didn't feel like repeating myself. More have been produced.

This was I think the 1st revolt in a Protestant white settlement area.

Exceptions made for England and Scotland?

We know what happened in later such cases that were suppressed. [Admitted this was probably influenced by what happened in the US but there's no way of knowing what would have happened after a successful defeat of the rebels. The directly guilty would of course be punished but I don't see the point in repression of the broader population. [I'm not counting establishing the rule of law as repression].

Now we're getting into the realm of verbal jugglery. Was what happened in England and Scotland after the Restoration merely 'establishing the rule of law'?

As far as I'm aware the only discussion was about raising taxes to meet some of the costs of garrisoning the colonies. There could have been some sinister master plan to reduce the self-government of the colonies but without evidence supporting such an idea that sounds more like a conspiracy theory than anything else.

Faeelin knows more than me, but I gathered that there various measures - increasing garrisons, a tighter taxes and excise regime, beefing up the power of appointed officials - meant to consolidate a mercantilist empire. I'll try and have another leukie in the beukie.

If you remember at the time, prior to the American and French rebellion there was heavy pressure for political reforms in Britain itself.

Why is this not a reason to crack down on rebels and resist pressure for change?
 
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Well, I've heard similar things said about Gordon Brown, but there you go!

One should consider the religious context. Scots in Scotland belonging to the kirk were the bastion of the regime's support in the country, against the supposedly Jacobite Episcopalians and Catholics, and the Seceding Kirks, whose staunch opposition to patronage raised memories of the Bishop's War and was in part the revolt of a deeply religious peasantry against 'Improvement'.

But Scots in other places are just Presbyterians and, like English Presbyterians, another kind of smelly non-comformist.
 
Socrates

Been busy because of an additive new game, which between its complexity and the fact its big enough my old computer can only just about manage it means I've only been checking in occasionally but to respond to a few points raised.


France's finances are going to be screwed sooner or later, so some crisis is going to happen. However, the Revolution was such a chaotic event there will be huge butterflies from small changes. I personally think the radicalism of the revolution will depend a lot on the hunger situation in the last twelve months, how France fared in the most recent war, individual remarks from members of the Royal family, and just how far the American revolutionaries got. If the Revolution was stillborn very early on, then the republican movement will be much weaker, whereas if it held on until late in the war (including if Frenchmen served there), it will be a lot stronger. Certainly I find timelines where Napoleon still comes to power pretty unbelievable with PODs before the calling of the Estates.

Very true. Likely some collapse will occur but just about anything could emerge.

Individual massacres might be butterflied, but the Natives are going to be subjugated and treated inhumanely whoever is in charge. We've had a lot of discussion about how the British thought differently to Englishmen and white foreigners - you're never going to get sufficient changes in how natives will be treated as lesser people before about 1850. When you combine that with a lot of white settlers, who have a much higher level of technology, the natives will get screwed in any timeline.

I fear you're right although I think it might have been a little better with continued British rule. The much greater experience of foreign diplomacy in Britain did mean there was some comprehension of other peoples and although the American Indians didn't have the same cultural status in European eyes as the nations of the old world this would have been a factor. However London is a lot further from the frontier than Washington and the white settlers have large numbers and a lot of influence so it is likely that overall things will follow a similar path as elsewhere, especially with the lack of a fellow European power as a threat.


The few that might have a change of being better treated are those that live in disputed areas between British and Spanish America around the Rockies and the deserts, if they play the alliance game well enough. But that's a big IF.

Those tribes might be the best bet unless some of the eastern tribes can get their status as 'civilised' widely accepted.

Agreed. Without British and American wrangling over Columbia, it's quite possible British settlers might even cross the Bering Straits and start settling in Siberia.

I don't know about this. Its a hell of a long way and there's a lot of N America to be explored and exploited first while the Russians are already in Siberia and Alaska.

On the domestic front, I think that's a big part of being a pretty homogenous group, without the North-South culture split of the US. If you look at the two areas where Canada does have some cultural split: French culture and Western alienation, those are the areas Canadian politics are a lot more divisive. In terms of a national mindset, as mentioned previously, I can't see Westminster allowing a continent-wide assembly, as it won't want any other parliament having such power. So the "national" politics would actually be the imperial politics, and I can imagine some pretty fierce arguments there.

London might be opposed to a continental assembly but I suspect a lot of colonists wouldn't be happy about it either. Without a major threat, or reason for needing an overall authority I could see them favouring more decentralised government and not wanting another layer. [OTL it was only the threat from the US and strong prompting from London that got all parts of Canada to agree to federation]. Something might come up, like when the empire bans slavery, although that might divide the regions at least as much as OTL.

I can't see an English-dominated Empire being named after an ancient name for Scotland. In fact, I doubt there will be a single organisation of the American colonies, instead being various polities: New England, Carolina, Greater Virginia etc, with new Western ones named after future monarchs. A name for the whole lot would be a more informal one like "the American provinces" or some such.

Agreed. Future monarchs, politicians, famous colonists etc.

I suspect the British will dominate the Americas more in this timeline, precipitating an earlier move into the Pacific, but they will be keener to break into China than Japan. However, with Chinese defensiveness, they might form a string of alliances with the Vietnamese, Japanese etc.

More powerful in the Pacific and probably the leader in breaking into China as OTL. I don't know why they would form alliances with neighbouring powers or whether Japan for instance would want such an alliance. Without a US its likely to be either Britain or Russia opening Japan, although possibly France might try to form a counter to probably British domination of China.

You're getting so far out now huge butterflies will come in. If the French Revolution is less radical and becomes a settled constitutional monarch, or alternately gets squished early by the British, the lack of French occupation and satellite states would delay the spread of nationalism. That might mean Germany unites a lot later. What would happen to international Marxism is frankly anyone's guess - how would industrialisation spread here?

Agreed.

All the above is presuming that a solution to the revolutionary problems is both found and proves stable. Even if Britain wins a quick war, say crushing Washington in 1777, and then feels the need to impose markedly higher taxes than suggested pre-war, say to maintain a larger garrison, the Americans will still be paying much lower taxes than Britons in the home islands, so that issue may come up again. Or the vastly different interests of the colonists and the metropolitan centre could lead to diverging paths. One problem here is the sheer dominance of British naval power if something like the French Revolution occurs and goes anything like OTL. Since Britain is so supreme at sea its colonies are pretty much safe from European attack and Europe is getting so far ahead of other power centres. As such there is no incentive for them to contribute to their own defence.

Steve
 
That's true, but when did Britain extend suffrage as widely as the US did, or even disestablish the Anglican Church?

IMO the occupation of New York isn't a good model, because the city was basically used as an armed camp.

The occupied southern colonies IMO are. These were the purported bastions of loyalism; and yet the British never reestablished the colonial legislatures, alienated loyalists, and had to fight a backwoods war that led to the disasters at Cowpens and (ultimately) Yorktown.

I think that rumbling is the sound of goal-posts moving.

Interesting reference in Yorktown. Where a French army and fleet, aided by rebels from the north managed to combine against the British forces on the south. It took a fair amount of luck, a lot of distractions elsewhere and some plain incompetence from the RN commander for this to work and it could well have been decisive in the other way.

I wish them luck with this. I really do.

I will grant that in OTL a lot of the impetus to form the Canadian assembly came from Britain, but cross-colonial developments were pushing towards an American identity. The publishing industry was increasingly America-centered, ministers were crossing the colonies, students went to the same universities, and the colonies themselves were aware that to stand against Wstminster they needed to be united.

Where they? This issue was only really decided nearly a century later when a strong central government was able to crush the power of the states.

Also you're using a circular argument. Its only if the hard liners win in forcing confrontation that they need to stand against Britain.



A unitary state without the American south though. I suspect a USA without the southern colonies would have also abolished slavery earlier...

Possibly but possibly not. If such a group had formed then slavery might have lingered in the OTL border states for quite a while since it wouldn't form such a strong issue of dispute.

Also you realise you're disagreeing with Lincoln here. He was quite determined that whatever they thought the people of the southern states were Americans [by which he meant under his control] and was willing to kill as many of them as necessary until they agreed with him.


What's the argument?

Simple. There was a lot of pressure for political reform in Britain in that period but it got buried during the war, which became rather a fight for national survival as it saw probably the last serious threat of foreign invasion prior to the post 1945 period. Coupled with the excesses of the rebels and then events across the Channel it also enabled the conservative elements to discredit reform and delay it at least a couple of generations from what might have been.

Franklin is very emblematic of american opinion in that respect, IMO.

:confused: Do you mean he changed his mind, he was duplicitous or what?


What, you mean the rebels who proceeded to defend the soldiers in a court of law? :)

One man decided to see justice done, it has been alleged because a further outburst here might alienate so many people to threaten the unrest they were trying to cause. As a result of that decision he nearly got murdered, as so many others were who proved insufficiently 'devout' to the revolution.

However you're avoiding the main point of the argument here. You're been trying to depict British rule as ruthless and autocratic so you need to explain why the British commanders were willing to allow a case to be heard in a colonial court when all that had happened was the soldiers had defended themselves from a bunch of vicious thugs.


Actually, the fate of Boston is IMO emblematic of how the colonies weren't treated the same way as Britons. How many ports were closed down in 18th century England because riotors destroyed property? How many had units in the British army stationed in them?

Other people have already answered this point. The fact you ask those questions suggest a fairly limited knowledge of the period.

Steve
 
That is, the opposition were opposed to the administration's policy? We've yet to here from anybody inside the North government, I believe.

So you expect people who oppose North's government and its policies to be in that government? The original question was to name people who opposed its policies on the colonies.

Previous point, or previous post? I'm sorry, you've lost me. Could you restate? Sorry to be a duffer.

I must admit its got so far back and I've been rather distracted so I can't remember what we were discussing here.:eek:

But they were all Britons in the colonies, apparently. :p In any case, the measures I am talking about are not golden calfs. As I said, there is already precedent for them in previous English history. On what grounds can we declare them more expensive than backing away from the mercantilist system and conceding British prestige?

I don't get you're point here? They were privileged economically but still British in the eyes of the government in London yes. You're the one who's been saying their been treated as inferior in some way to British citizens elsewhere?

So the Americans are European? Um...

By origin and culture. Unless you think they were Tibetians?:p

Also, the Ulster Presbyterians weren't having a wonderful time under the Ascendancy, and they were pretty Protestant.

They were doing a lot better than the Catholics they were oppressing.;)


Exceptions made for England and Scotland?


Now we're getting into the realm of verbal jugglery. Was what happened in England and Scotland after the Restoration merely 'establishing the rule of law'?

True, I forgot about that.

The period after the restoration saw a decline in the rule of law but this was reversed in the aftermath of 1688. Britain was still very backward by modern standards but it was far more modern in terms of citizen rights than any other major state.

Faeelin knows more than me, but I gathered that there various measures - increasing garrisons, a tighter taxes and excise regime, beefing up the power of appointed officials - meant to consolidate a mercantilist empire. I'll try and have another leukie in the beukie.

I think you're working from the assumption that there was some dark conspiracy and hence everything fits in with that. Do you know any actual evidence that the issue wasn't simply what the government said. That they wanted the colonies to make a contribution to their own defence?

Why is this not a reason to crack down on rebels and resist pressure for change?

As I said elsewhere this was potentially as great a tragedy as the American rebellion itself. The excesses of the rebels and the threat posed to Britain, then the following events in France enabled reactionary elements to turn back reforms and delay matters in Britain for a couple of generations.

Ideally, if the extremists had been squashed pretty quickly, then reform might not have got stalled and things could have moved markedly faster inside Britain as well as the colonies.

Don't forget that until they decided on independence as an aim the rebels were the reactionaries, seeking to resists changes they didn't like.

Steve
 
Faeelin wrote:

That's true, but when did Britain extend suffrage as widely as the US did, or even disestablish the Anglican Church?

Unfortunately the US did not become a democracy in any meaningful sense until the 1960's: there's no point in having a law on the statute books if everyone agrees to disregard it. Of course, if you're a white person who can vote then you'll probably think that everything's hunky-dory, but in this case the opinion of a black person is probably of more value.
 
So you expect people who oppose North's government and its policies to be in that government? The original question was to name people who opposed its policies on the colonies.

Fair enough, although in that case I was communicating poorly since I never meant to suggest that nobody was opposed to the government or that nobody was sympathetic to the rebels and I'd been trying to convey that from the start.

My point is, what do the people opposed to a government have to do with the policy it will adopt, after that government's own policy has been vindicated by a victory?

I must admit its got so far back and I've been rather distracted so I can't remember what we were discussing here.:eek:

No problem.

I don't get you're point here? They were privileged economically but still British in the eyes of the government in London yes. You're the one who's been saying their been treated as inferior in some way to British citizens elsewhere?

I don't think they enjoyed less freedom of speech or religion, say, than an Englishman (which isn't necessarily a ringing endorsement); in some cases, I believe, they enjoyed more. I am saying that the empire in the Americas was designed to create profit for the homeland, which fit with the contemporary logic of mercantilism, and the Americans were an increasingly self-aware and independent-minded people who were asking why it shouldn't designed to create a profit for them.

And that led to a conflict in which Britain proved quite willing to use measures - military action to close down truculent ports - that certainly did go further than the nearest analogy in the homeland. That's the point: you wouldn't ever have to use them in the homeland, because we weren't getting the raw end of mercantilism.

But having beaten this revolt, the measures I'm suggesting as possibilities - military presence, censorship, control of the press, control of arms, limitations on meeting and movement, a regime of the established church - all certainly have precedents back home. And the supposed similarity between English then and American puritans now was not lost on people in the Establishment

By origin and culture. Unless you think they were Tibetians?:p

But all the people I mentioned were European in origin: that the European powers uniformly acted like ginormous dicks towards Africans and native Americans goes without saying. True, a lot of them were Catholic, but not all. Non-comformists were, if you asked some people (a lot of the Scots officers in America, for instance), nearly as bad.

They were doing a lot better than the Catholics they were oppressing.;)

Bah. Oppressing who now? Stormont didn't start in 1649. I am of some Ulster Scots extraction myself, and I really wish people wouldn't talk such nonsense.

Ulster Presbyterians didn't like Catholicism. Presbyterians at this time generally didn't, before we start on the folk-memory of the Confederate War. That's an obvious fact. But where does oppression spring from? Presbyterians didn't run the state. Presbyterians didn't even own much of the land (less than Catholics, IIRC, although those figures might have come from later). The Ascendancy which owned and ran Ireland didn't like Presbyterians and the feeling was mutual.

For a lot of the time, Presbyterians were barred from public office, just like Catholics. Presbyterian marriage wasn't recognised by the state. Like Catholics, they had to pay the CoI tithe: ministers got a salary from the state (recognised as a necessary measure to keep them at least somewhat on-side) which made the burden less than the double-tithe of the Catholics, but it didn't mean Presbyterians didn't intensely resent having to pay for the CoI at all. And Presbyterians were, at the end of Ascendancy, not able to compete with Anglicans on equal terms in the Ulster flax trade thanks to their legal disabilities. No wonder, then, that there was such a substantial Presbyterian contingent in various movements aiming to overthrow the Ascendancy.

The period after the restoration saw a decline in the rule of law but this was reversed in the aftermath of 1688. Britain was still very backward by modern standards but it was far more modern in terms of citizen rights than any other major state.

What? James II was trying to get on top of his kingdoms' oligarchs - and one of his wicked devices was to broaden the oligarchy by moving against the hegemony of the Establish Church. Sure, he didn't actually like Dissenters one bit, but then neither did William III. If William III lived - reluctantly - with the Covenanter revolution, he at the same time cracked down on Ireland (he wasn't plain malevolent - his own preference would have been more conciliatory to Catholics - but he is the man at the start of Ascendancy).

'Citizen rights' don't come bundled in a package, and I don't see why Britain's particular don't-mess-with-the-oligarchy set was so much ahead of, say, the Netherlands, or all the wee little German states were these wasn't enough regime to go around oppressing anybody. Certainly the Bill of Rights never protected Highlanders from having their houses burned down for no reason, or ordinary Englishmen being transported for looking at the property of their betters in a significant way. It was after 1688 that the Bloody Code took off.

I think you're working from the assumption that there was some dark conspiracy and hence everything fits in with that. Do you know any actual evidence that the issue wasn't simply what the government said. That they wanted the colonies to make a contribution to their own defence?

I don't think there was a conspiracy, I think there was a widely-accepted idea of royal authority and mercantilist economics. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy because the regime believed in colonies obeying the homeland, run for the profit of the homeland, which doesn't sound outlandish. It is, in fact, implied by the necessity of defending them in the first place.

I will schedule a leukie in the beukie when my knees feel less like falling off.

As I said elsewhere this was potentially as great a tragedy as the American rebellion itself. The excesses of the rebels and the threat posed to Britain, then the following events in France enabled reactionary elements to turn back reforms and delay matters in Britain for a couple of generations.

If you're going to say you see no concrete evidence for my opinion - and fair enough, I haven't produced any dates - then I must likewise question this. Reforms happened after the American Revolution, in some spheres and not others: Catholic Relief and the end of the punitive regime in the Highlands carried on. But who in the 1770s elite was all for giving the vote to the vulgar people?

Don't forget that until they decided on independence as an aim the rebels were the reactionaries, seeking to resists changes they didn't like.

Just like the men of '88, I suppose.
 
Unfortunately the US did not become a democracy in any meaningful sense until the 1960's: there's no point in having a law on the statute books if everyone agrees to disregard it. Of course, if you're a white person who can vote then you'll probably think that everything's hunky-dory, but in this case the opinion of a black person is probably of more value.

It must be remembered that black people in Britain at this time could not vote either, as they belonged to the common people (horrible lot!).
 
It must be remembered that black people in Britain at this time could not vote either, as they belonged to the common people (horrible lot!).

Now I wonder if that (bolded) had more to do with anti-American attitudes than "they're not English".

Not just directing this at you alone, just curious. Men like Washington and Franklin are of standing in the colonies, but their equivalents in England aren't exactly of the right sort to those who regard the common people as something of a nuisance at best.

That would make men like Lord North, Lord Sandwich, Lord Grenville and so on suspicious on general principles.

Its probably taking it too far to say it was all classism, but it can't have helped - or made the reaction to a failed rebellion all that nice.
 
I think that rumbling is the sound of goal-posts moving.

I don't see how. My point is that you can look at how the British would have handled the colonies in the colonies they did largely subdue. No restoration of civilian control, freedom of assembly, etc.

e they? This issue was only really decided nearly a century later when a strong central government was able to crush the power of the states.

I don't know if that's true. This is an issue of what's the primary identity, to an extent; but I'm very much of the school that takes those declarations of secession at face value, where they repeat they are seceding to defend slavery.

Also you realise you're disagreeing with Lincoln here. He was quite determined that whatever they thought the people of the southern states were Americans [by which he meant under his control] and was willing to kill as many of them as necessary until they agreed with him.

I don't follow.

Simple. There was a lot of pressure for political reform in Britain in that period but it got buried during the war, which became rather a fight for national survival as it saw probably the last serious threat of foreign invasion prior to the post 1945 period. Coupled with the excesses of the rebels

What excesses of the rebels? It's noteworthy that Burke and co., who were no fans of the French Revolution, saw the American revolution as perfectly justifiable.

I mean, American diplomats were feted in Russia; Franklin was a celebrity in Europe. So I don't see what America did exactly.

Meanwhile, prior to the Revolution George III was using the purse to manipulate parliament, bribe the opposition, appoint cronies, etc. I would actually classify his reign as a revival of British absolutism, and with a son who wasn't a twat and an American defeat British parliamentary rule could've been jeopardized.


:confused: Do you mean he changed his mind, he was duplicitous or what?

This attitude towards Britain, and how it changed throughout the 170s and 1770s. As late as 1774, he was lamenting that if only the British had been willing to treat the colonies as equals, they could have gone on together to plant colonies from the Atlantic to the South Sea (The Pacific).



Other people have already answered this point. The fact you ask those questions suggest a fairly limited knowledge of the period.

Steve

Has anyone? IBC has implicitly drawn comparisons to the treatment of Scotland and Ireland in this period, but AFAIK the only other statement was "British troops were stationed in British cities as well." Rioting in London? The militia gets called out, some people get spanked, but that's it. But suppressing an entire city's livelihood via an act of parliament because of attacks on private property? Well.

This isn't quite accurate, as I will address.

Unfortunately the US did not become a democracy in any meaningful sense until the 1960's: there's no point in having a law on the statute books if everyone agrees to disregard it. Of course, if you're a white person who can vote then you'll probably think that everything's hunky-dory, but in this case the opinion of a black person is probably of more value.

The 14th Amendment said:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That the Reconstruction failed is a tragedy, but we should not ignore that blacks were granted the right to vote via constitutional amendment immediately after the Civil War, voted and held office until domestic terrorism kicked them out of office, and continued to vote in the northern states.

I should also note I am skeptical of relying on the claim that the colonies were freeloaders who were lightly taxed for several reasons:

1) This ignores other economic burdens on the colonies, such as prohibitions on manufacturing, restrictions on trading with other parties, etc.

2) It's not like the colonies didn't send forces, raise taxes for the British Wars, etc.
 
Haven't posted for a while, so just reading through a lot of replies. I think we're in danger of becoming one of those threads with a lot of point-by-point rebuttals that lose sight of the core of the debate, and make it difficult for new joiners to follow. Let me try to bring things back together here.

I think we have established the following things we all agree on:


  • The British have a record for repression before the American Revolution, particularly if you go back into the 17th Century
  • The harshest repression tended to come from local elites rather than Westminster, although Westminster was still guilty
  • While it's not perfectly linear, there was a trending change in policy responses from harsh repression to addressal of legitimate grievances in the 18th and 19th centuries. There were instances of the more lenient response before it, although more afterwards
  • There is likely to be an immediate crackdown in the 5-10 years after the war, although this won't be as bad as, say, the Highland Clearances
  • Much more important is the longer term response. This is highly dependent on whether a more Whig-minded or a more Tory-minded government is in power, due to their conceptions of the American colonists and views of natural rights
  • Setting aside party labels, parliament became increasingly Whiggish over the next 20 years in OTL. However, Lord North was very Tory, as was George III, who boosted the Tories above their natural level through patronage
  • Most Americans were of British descent and thought of themselves as Britons. They also had strong identities related to their provinces (e.g. Virginians), and another American identity was formed during the war. These identities were not necessarily in conflict with each other, although repression made them so
  • The American colonies (including those that did not revolt here) had common interests against the Motherland in keeping taxes low, Westward expansion, allowing smuggling, and resisting UK influence over policy
  • They were divided in terms of slavery, the benefits of mercantilism/tariffs (agricultural states versus manufacturers), language in the case of Quebec, religious establishment, and internal improvements
It seems to me that the areas of disagreement that are fundamental to other causes, are:

  1. Whether governments in the 1780-1820 period would be more Whig or more Tory
  2. Whether the divisions between colonies and the UK were bigger than the divisions between them, and the advantages of staying part of the Empire
 
I think that's a very good summary, although I'm still not sure whether "Whig" and "Tory" are terribly useful for talking about a regime in Britain at this time, as against discussing who's in it, who's patronising it, and why they're doing. Both 'parties' very wide, very flexible labels in a system that bore hardly any resemblance to modern party-politics, and there were plenty of people who were for fighting the colonists, or even in the government, who called themselves "Whigs". In fact for the last several decades British politics had consisted largely of opposed flavours of Whig because the Tory label had gone out of fashion.

I'd also clarify that the most dramatic, most brutal, and best-remembered part of the long process of Clearance - the huge move-it-or-lose-it evictions of crofters in the northwestern lands - had nothing to do with political repression and everything to do with this country's landowning elite being a pack of money-grubbing bastards. By that point the various bans had been repealed (vernacular Scottish Gaelic only finally displaced "classical Gaelic" - old-farrant Irish - in print after Culloden) and the Highland regiments were an elite force ("Yesterday I say them wearing the big kilt on the streets of Done Edging/And who now will call us rebels?"). Even before Sir Walt invented Scotland, the Highlands had already been turned from "Catholic cattle-stealing rotters" into "sturdy exotic Celtic types" (Celts were also invented at this time).

Which didn't stop them having their houses burned down; but it wasn't the redcoats doing it.
 
Roughly, I agree.

But I think it's worth noting that the Revolution reflects a systematic failure of Britain on all fronts. Britain entered the war diplomatically isolated, with everyone across the continent hoping for its failure, to some degree or another. Maria Theresa, Catherine, Frederick the Great... all had reasons to dislike the British. When Britain tried to buy Spain's neutrality, it didn't offer anything that would seriously tempt Spain, like Gibraltar. Then it managed to get the UK's traditional allies, the Dutch, to declare war.

IMO this is reflective of the same problem the British had in America: a belief of their own supremacy, and an unwillingness to accept compromise and understand that negotiation was a two way street.

At the same time, Britain was somewhat worried that concessions to the colonists would make it look weak in Europe, at a time when Britain's influence on the continent was already declining. Witness how nobody cared what the UK thought of the Partition of Poland, how the nation stood by as Corsica was lost to French, as Lorraine was annexed, etc.

(I admit I stole this from Two Victories and a Defeat, a smashing look at the UK's foreign policy in the 18th century).

So it goes.

On the other hand, I wonder how much of world history would be that different if the colonies and Britain had come to an accomodation. Anglo-American relations are basically: the US serves as a big trading partner and opportunity to invest, and in the 20th century, as mutual allies. So I guess you're positing an ATL where America and the UK support nascent revolutionaries in Latin America and then ally against European attempts at hegemony....

Or, to give an incident at the Treaty of Paris.... A french diplomat told the American delegation would go on to form the greatest empire in the world. An American delegate shot back, "Yes sir, and they will all speak English, every one of them."
 
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I think that's a very good summary, although I'm still not sure whether "Whig" and "Tory" are terribly useful for talking about a regime in Britain at this time, as against discussing who's in it, who's patronising it, and why they're doing. Both 'parties' very wide, very flexible labels in a system that bore hardly any resemblance to modern party-politics, and there were plenty of people who were for fighting the colonists, or even in the government, who called themselves "Whigs". In fact for the last several decades British politics had consisted largely of opposed flavours of Whig because the Tory label had gone out of fashion.

Yes, but I think there was more than simply a label change going on here. Whiggish sentiments were certainly spreading. It's also worth bearing in mind that any expansion of the suffrage is likely to bring in more of a Whig mindset - the reforms efforts of our timeline were knocked back a few decades by the French Revolution. Would that happen or not here? Also, as I mentioned previously, the next four PMs (Rockingham, Shelburne, Portland and Pitt) were all very sympathetic to the Americans and their ideas. I don't know about Addington (can anyone enlighten me?), but then it was Pitt again, Grenville (very whiggish), and Portland again.

But I think it's worth noting that the Revolution reflects a systematic failure of Britain on all fronts. Britain entered the war diplomatically isolated, with everyone across the continent hoping for its failure, to some degree or another. Maria Theresa, Catherine, Frederick the Great... all had reasons to dislike the British. When Britain tried to buy Spain's neutrality, it didn't offer anything that would seriously tempt Spain, like Gibraltar. Then it managed to get the UK's traditional allies, the Dutch, to declare war.

IMO this is reflective of the same problem the British had in America: a belief of their own supremacy, and an unwillingness to accept compromise and understand that negotiation was a two way street.

Yes, and the outcome of this may well depend on when the war is won. If it comes before the French enter, then Britain would still be in the position of expecting someone to come in on their side during the next war. If later, they might have realised their isolation and realised they'd had a hell of a risk.

At the same time, Britain was somewhat worried that concessions to the colonists would make it look weak in Europe, at a time when Britain's influence on the continent was already declining. Witness how nobody cared what the UK thought of the Partition of Poland, how the nation stood by as Corsica was lost to French, as Lorraine was annexed, etc.
Yes but their influence would increase again during any French Revolutionary Wars, I suspect, so this might not last. The next general European war could also change their diplomatic isolation.

(I admit I stole this from Two Victories and a Defeat, a smashing look at the UK's foreign policy in the 18th century).
Sounds like something to add to my reading list.

On the other hand, I wonder how much of world history would be that different if the colonies and Britain had come to an accomodation. Anglo-American relations are basically: the US serves as a big trading partner and opportunity to invest, and in the 20th century, as mutual allies. So I guess you're positing an ATL where America and the UK support nascent revolutionaries in Latin America and then ally against European attempts at hegemony....
Yes, I suspect a lot would be similar. However, I think the isolationism of the US for much of its history would have been changed. I also suspect the British economic domination of Latin America might change to much more military intervention. The William Walkers of the world would have been much more tolerated by the British than they were by the US Federal Government. I also think there would be a lot of poor Americans, particularly freed blacks, that might take up employment in the Royal Navy/EIC, which would give a significant boost to the Empire's military capacity.

This would have been particularly the case if the Spanish Empire lasted. However, I suspect the fate of the Spanish Empire would have depended on how far the American Revolution got, and how the Spanish Navy fared during this timeline's French Revolutionary Wars.

It's also possible India would have got a lot less attention from Westminster than it received in OTL. Perhaps the EIC would have lasted longer, with all its corrupt abuses.

Also, would Pacific access for the British Empire have caused earlier and greater domination of China. The British may have a headstart over European powers here. However, China's likely to be a big nut to crack, and the fierce nationalism of the country could be where the British overreach here.
 
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I prefer the more "for want of nail" PoD at Saratoga -- Benedict Arnold doesn't manage to rally the troops, the battle is lost, France and Spain hold off on aiding the Americans, and Britain wins the war. It's cliche, I know, but that's for a reason...
I prefer the "Disaster at Trenton" myself. The British know they are coming*, and the small boats are met with several rounds of Grape Shot. Poof no more Colonial Army.

I wonder about Colonial Finances after the ARW fails.
There are good reasons why Colonial Debt was the #1 Political Issuse from 1782 Up to Shaw's Rebellion in the early 1790's.
I doubt if the British Military Governments in the Colonies will be redeeming the Continentals.



*Washington found a unopened letter on the commanders desk the next morning, It supposedly detailed the entire plan for the night attack.
 
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