Rule, Britannia!
"What I have now offered is meant merely for the sake of my country, for the simple question is:
Will you change your Ministers and keep the Empire, or keep your Ministers and lose the Kingdom?" - William Pitt the Younger
"What I have now offered is meant merely for the sake of my country, for the simple question is:
Will you change your Ministers and keep the Empire, or keep your Ministers and lose the Kingdom?" - William Pitt the Younger
His Royal Majesty, King George III, emerged from the Seven Years War with the grandest Empire in contemporary Europe. Spain was crumbling and France lay maimed. The British Empire stretched from frozen Canada to darkest Africa and beyond to the mythical Indian Subcontinent. The proud Royal Navy guarded Britannia's waters across the globe and the British Army was one of the most disciplined forces in the world. The crown jewel of the Empire, however, was muddied by a brewing storm. Just across the Atlantic, the North American colonies had developed into a booming and populous semi-nation. They brought with them a reshaping of previous social notions and religious outlook, an inevitable clash between archaic tradition and the unrelenting force of liberalism. American colonists and their Revolution would fundamentally alter the course of British history.
The old national attitudes towards colonial ventures were no longer applicable in this self-sustaining area and the rapidly spreading teachings of Enlightenment philosophers only served to complicate matters even further. Costly border wars with local native tribes and the horrendously expensive Seven Years War had drained the Royal Treasury. In contrast to the relatively modern laissez-faire economic methods taking hold in the mother country, the American colonies were held under a strict policy of oppressive Mercantilism, typified by the Navigation Acts of 1651. Seldom enforced before, the Royal Government began to crack down on the smuggling of any goods that could be taxed. Further measures such as the 1764 Sugar and Currency Acts provoked a boycott of British goods. Continued degeneration of relations culminated in the passing of the 1765 Stamp Act, the first truly direct tax levied on colonists. Intense protests by British manufactures suffering from the boycott spurred a repeal of the bill but relations remained tepid.
Westminster, the seat of power in the British Empire and an international symbol of liberty.
The accidental killing of five colonists on March 5, 1770 by members of the armed forces in Boston polarized the already fractured dependencies. The blacklisting of tea imports from India enraged Parliament and caused them to award the East India Company powers to undercut all colonial merchants. Similarly angered citizens of Boston secretly boarded the new tea freighters on the night of December 16, 1773 and dumped their cargoes into the Atlantic. The Royal Government's response, the Punitive Acts, harshly punished the entire city of Boston and convinced most hitherto neutral citizens to join the Rebel cause.
Townspeople all over Massachusetts took to arms and removed town officials loyal to the Crown. By the time a garrison from the Islands arrived in the Americas the colony was unofficially taken by rebels. Their attempt to seize weapons in the towns of Lexington and Concord erupted in the first real armed conflict of the Revolution on April 19, 1775. Militias from the immediate areas rushed to Boston's defense and a pitched engagement ensued. The Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17 ended in the professional British Regulars overrunning the hastily assembled colonial forces but proved to the Royal Government that the rebellion would not be easily stopped.
The Battle of Bunker Hill changed the tide of the unfolding conflict.
All 13 colonies convened the Second Continental Congress on May 10 and attempted to address their grievances with the King. Though their deliberations raised a Continental Army to combat the King's, they attempted one last outreach for peace. This letter, the Humble Petition, would save or destroy the Empire.
Colonial ideology was rooted in the Republican writings of John Locke and his "social contract". Written by a student of the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson, the petition reflected their belief in a dawning of a new age dominated by liberalism, equality, and parliamentarians. Prime Minister Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, received the letter on July 2. A night of thorough contemplation resulted in an impassioned speech to the House of Lords and George. In it he called for the equal constitutional and economic rights of colonists in order to benefit the entire nation and fulfill their duties as leaders to represent the interests of all men. Liberal members convened in Westminster rose in open applaud. More conservative men and the King only grumbled in a general idealistic agreement. The retreat of the military from its occupation of Boston would force their hand and, soon after, a harried Royal Government assented to the petition and a cease-fire was proclaimed.
Nearly one year later, on July 4, the 1776 Act of Union was officially passed by both houses of Parliament. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was born into existence and all current and further colonial holdings became an extension of Great Britain. The House of Commons was thoroughly restructured to allow Canadian and American representation and a uniform set of Smithian economic laws applied to the whole Empire. The Revolution had ended, but its achievements would reverberate through the world for eternity.
The World of Rule, Britannia!.
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