There's an awful lot of "Great Man" theory going on here, and with all due respect, that pretty much has been supplanted since Herbert Spencer et al...
At risk of entering a debate which I have very little desire to enter… I'd just like to make a little nitpick. The Dominion of New England was not exactly the sort of thing that one might wish to imitate to make the Americans happy; it was utterly unlike a 'Dominion' in the Canadian sense. It was a deeply unpopular, autocratic creation of King James II in his wish to establish greater personal control over several colonies (which is very much contrary to the time of George III, as anyone with the faintest knowledge beyond merely regurgitating revolutionary-era propaganda about an evil tyrant king—and I'd certainly put myself in the 'faintest knowledge' category there—would know; it was a matter of parliamentary control which George III then put himself behind, rejecting the wishes of the rebels who said that they were loyal to the King and hostile only to Parliament and even developed legal theory to support this principle, to do with the mechanics of the Acts of Union). It was thoroughly artificial, a great leap forward in democracy (in the Maoist sense—i.e. a great leap backward) and widely despised by the inhabitants, which is why, as soon as the Glorious Revolution got James II out of the way, the New Englanders immediately got rid of it, professing loyalty to the revolutionary regime in Great Britain as an excuse.
Yep.
The 'political solution' to the American colonies is to just let things keep going as they already were. The colonists were happy with the way things were in 1750 and there is no reason for them to significantly want to change things on a broad, social scale. It was the arrogance of the Imperial government in London after the victory over the French that set the ball rolling. A more ambiguous ending to the 7 Years War could easily produce a British government that is willing to see the light of compromise.
Yet the USA is the result of a great man. Without George Washington there may well have been a successful rebellion and the breakaway of the 13 colonies. However the result would not be much like the OTL USA.
He was one of the luckiest military leaders in history. If we Brits had had one that lucky the rebellion wouldn't have lasted beyond 1776! (I'm not knocking his luck by the way paraphrasing Napoleon; a lucky general is more useful than an able one(although being both is even better!))
Yet the USA is the result of a great man. Without George Washington there may well have been a successful rebellion and the breakaway of the 13 colonies. However the result would not be much like the OTL USA.
He was one of the luckiest military leaders in history. If we Brits had had one that lucky the rebellion wouldn't have lasted beyond 1776! (I'm not knocking his luck by the way paraphrasing Napoleon; a lucky general is more useful than an able one(although being both is even better!))
Yep.
The 'political solution' to the American colonies is to just let things keep going as they already were. The colonists were happy with the way things were in 1750 and there is no reason for them to significantly want to change things on a broad, social scale. It was the arrogance of the Imperial government in London after the victory over the French that set the ball rolling. A more ambiguous ending to the 7 Years War could easily produce a British government that is willing to see the light of compromise.
And I wasn't even proposing a great man theory. I mentioned a whole host of factions in the British parliament who could have changed things. History is a combination of long term forces and historical accidents. You have to laugh at the people that always insist OTL was inevitable.
What about Ben Franklin and the idea of a dominion he presented at Albany?
Except that the statement "The problem is that you got two hardline governments in a row into power" would seem to preclude the accomodationists, would it not?
Yep.
The 'political solution' to the American colonies is to just let things keep going as they already were. The colonists were happy with the way things were in 1750 and there is no reason for them to significantly want to change things on a broad, social scale. It was the arrogance of the Imperial government in London after the victory over the French that set the ball rolling. A more ambiguous ending to the 7 Years War could easily produce a British government that is willing to see the light of compromise.
Chatham: Should have been conciliatory but PM was sidelined with gout. The hardline Townshend exercised power instead.
Grafton: Conciliatory. Collapsed due to an unrelated foreign policy issue.
North: Very hardline. Led to the war.
Rockingham: Highly conciliatory. Ended the war on benign terms.
This is not evidence of an inevitably hardline British government who would never tolerate anything but the exploitation of America.
Why is it so unlikely that the French would have survived in North America? Of course I'm well aware of the vast population imbalance and the difference in manner of colonisation that caused it, but wars between colonists in North America in this era were also larger wars between their colonial masters in Europe and across the world. If New France held for long enough and France had better luck against Great Britain in naval battles in the Seven Years' War and managed a landing in Great Britain, France will have a strong hand in forcing Great Britain to accept its terms—which may well include French maintenance of the status quo, or even territorial gains, in North America. In the environment of a powerful France that still poses a huge threat, a France allied to feared and hated Native Americans to boot, are the British colonists in North America going to reject the terms of the peace treaty and rebel against Great Britain that has accepted it, thus making themselves alone against that French threat? I'd very much doubt it, in the 1750s. In that case, coupled with further French migration (the French government did understand the degree of the imbalance they were facing, to the point that they regarded even a mainteance of the status quo as a victory, so it's not unreasonable to suppose that they might have tried to change policy in accordance with realisation), we could quite possibly see a British America under heavy threat from France, closely tied to Great Britain and restricted to the east coast by the French threat.
I think the OTL outcome is more likely, but I doubt your assertion that British America was destined even from the 1750s to become an independent nation and a superpower. From the end of the Seven Years' War? That's far more defensible, though I'd still doubt that the unification of the British colonies in North America is inevitable from 1763. From before 1754? I don't think so.
All you need is a different king. Fredrick was a Whig and would have continued Whig governance if he had lived.
Your post was not the one that prompted the "Great Man" comment, but along those lines, there are ALWAYS a host of factions in various legislatures that "could" change things ... and yet they rarely if ever do.
Certainly not if those calling the tune, with cash or otherwise, do not wish them to do so...
Your point on long term forces is one I agree with, obviously, so given the long-term forces that had moved the interests of London, specifically, and England, generally, to the center of politics in the British Empire, how much would have to change - in less than two decades, essentially - for anything approximating responsible government to have come about for the Thirteen Colonies?
One would expect quite a bit, actually, given the various English oxen being gored, otherwise...
Best,
Mmm. if you look at this way, I think you have a point. But North was in power for much longer than the other guys, and he had the strong backing of the king (who refused to consider American efforts at peace, such as the Olive Branch petition).
I've become much more skeptical of an accomodation between the colonies and Britain during the period after looking at Britain's foreign policy. There was no idea of give and take, and the notion that you should support an ally in return for favors down the line seemed to be anathema to Britain. With that sort of attitude, it's hard to see the British making concessions to America.
Lot of "ifs" don't you think?
Look, as significant as the deployment of "European" troops (or the lack thereof, in some conflicts) was to the ultimate collapse(s) of the European empires in the Western Hemisphere was, the foundational question of which "settler" society (English-, French- or Spanish-speaking) was going to dominate the continent was going to turn on population in North America, and the basis for that was who ended up in charge of the termperate Atlantic coastal zone (call it New Hampshire to Georgia); the answer is self-evident.
Best,
the earlier the war we pick, the weaker the English/later British position relative to its European rivals was
Two of them: New France holding to some degree for long enough that France isn't totally expelled from North America by the time the war ends in Europe, and France winning one of the various naval battles which it could have won IOTL if it had had better luck on the day. That doesn't strike me as enormously implausible, especially if we alter the situation on the Continent (Frederick the Great was pretty lucky too) to make things there go less well for the British, so they're able to do.
It doesn't have to be the Seven Years' War either; that was just the latest Anglo-French war where the French had a significant presence in North America. We could go earlier; indeed, the earlier we go, the lower the existing population imbalance, the more plausible it is for an Anglo-French colonial conflict to go the other way.
I am unconvinced that the British settler population advantage was as decisive by the 1750s as you are saying it is. A victorious France and a later more populated New France, coupled with French-backed and French-armed Native Americans gradually becoming more adept vis-à-vis European settlers, may keep the British settlers confined to the east coast, especially by political pressure on Great Britain via victories in Europe; before the American Revolutionary War, British America (as it then was) was not a state of its own which could wage war against other European colonies unaffected by the success or failure of its colonial master. That would still probably leave the Anglo-Americans (presuming that they are united) as the most populous and richest state in North America, but not necessarily dominating that continent as they do today.
And the Seven Years' War is the latest possible choice, with the highest imbalance; the earlier the war we pick, the weaker the English/later British position relative to its European rivals was, the easier it is to imagine the English/later British hold in North America being weakened or even expunged entirely like the Dutch hold.
I presume you wouldn't say that the 1590s English hold in North America was destined for domination of that continent, though you say that the 1750s British hold in North America was. I'd be interested to see where you would draw the cut-off point.