Asami
Banned
Chapter I: Song of the South
The exploits of George Washington were quick to earn him the attentions and praises of his superiors, and his colonial masters in London. After the conclusion of peace in 1765, Washington was ordered to come to London at His Majesty's order. Upon his arrival, he was graciously welcomed to London, and was placed in the audience of His Majesty, King George III (whom had been ruling for just five years by this point), as well as Prime Minister Thomas Pelham-Holles (the Duke of Newcastle), William Pitt, and several members of the Privy Council and the higher echelons of British society. He also was to meet with Sir Johnson, his commander in the war.
It was in London, that George Washington was named a Knight of the Garter. Washington was recorded by historians, and several contemporary accounts, namely that of William Pitt and the Duke, as being very humble and nearly refusing the offer before His Majesty insisted.
"When Sir Washington was declared to have been named a Knight of the Garter, the General bowed his head and gave a list of excuses as to why he was unfit to be a Knight of the Garter, and nearly refused the offer of His Majesty. His Majesty affixed Washington with a long hard stare, and spoke with earnest amusement, "General Washington, it is unheard of for a man of your stature to refuse a knighthood, and to refuse the honors of the Crown... but I do not accept your refusal anyway."
The lot of us were quite amused at this encounter, as it truly illustrated at the stark differences between the aristocratic nature of the colonies and the Kingdom; the colonial aristocracy raised men of humility and value, whereas the aristocracy in the kingdom has an... air of greed, I suppose we all knew at that point that, well, George Washington was surely one of His Majesty's most loyal subjects, and I cannot remember a time in the man's life where he did anything but give his all for the Crown. He was truly a British patriot."
- From the memoirs of William Pitt the Elder
The lot of us were quite amused at this encounter, as it truly illustrated at the stark differences between the aristocratic nature of the colonies and the Kingdom; the colonial aristocracy raised men of humility and value, whereas the aristocracy in the kingdom has an... air of greed, I suppose we all knew at that point that, well, George Washington was surely one of His Majesty's most loyal subjects, and I cannot remember a time in the man's life where he did anything but give his all for the Crown. He was truly a British patriot."
- From the memoirs of William Pitt the Elder
Washington was also ordered/requested to serve as the first Governor-General of the Colony of Quebec, which consisted of pretty much every part of New France that had been annexed from the Ohio River Valley running north from there. The border was drawn at the pre-war Rupert's Land, and the Mississippi River. Washington, despite reservations, graciously accepted His Majesty's appointment, and was, with that, sent home to the colonies to assume his duties.
Washington, however, did not assume the position of Governor-General until the 31st of October, 1767; after ensuring his property at Mount Vernon would be taken care of, and arranging for a small party of associates to come with him as his advisors. One such adviser was a young Virginian lawyer, whom had just recently been put on the bar. He had impressed Washington while he had stopped in Williamsburg to do business with the Governor of Virginia in regards to a small confusion in his service for the Colony of Virginia's militia versus his officer's commission in the British Army.
After the man had finished his work and made to leave the building, Washington approached the man and offered him a deal. He would serve as a legal consultant to him with regards to British law in Quebec, and in exchange, receive a higher paycheck, and open the path for greater career mobility in the future. The young man, swayed by Washington's offer, joined him in his council. With that, Thomas Jefferson joined Washington in the service of the Crown in Quebec.
Sir George Washington, the 1st Governor-General of the Colony of Quebec.
As the first official Governor, he was tasked with enforcing the Proclamation of 1763, which forbade settlers from the Thirteen Colonies from passing into Indian-held lands in the Ohio Country, and from violating the border of Quebec. This act had been declared and made law in the colonies after the conclusion of hostilities on the North American continent, and had been a source of grumbling tension.
This was under Washington's purvey due to Quebec Act of 1767, which granted his colony it's fullest extent, by merging most of the Indian Reserve into Quebec. This was the first issue -- enforcing the various proclamations and ensuring the minimal violation of these laws. Just as well, Washington's colonial administration also was to deal with French Catholics and maintaining order, discipline and peace, which he swore to do.
The Radicals
After the 1761 election; the Duke of Newcastle had continued his tenure as Prime Minister, at the expense of the massive collapse of the British political scene. With the new King in his seat of power, neither the Tories, nor the Whigs, could sustain their political organizations.
While the Duke of Newcastle remained Prime Minister until the end of the French and Indian War, he soon faced a growing movement which endangered the power of him and his rapidly disintegrating political movement.
The Libertines, a group of radical liberals with an unending focus on new reforms in terms of democracy, were also notable for their advocation of abolitionism -- the emancipation of slaves across the Empire. They reasoned, in public forums across Britain, that the emancipation of slaves would be, in a long-term, more beneficial to the Empire than not, and would allow Britain to stick it to the French, and gain moral supremacy over them.
In the 1768 general election, the Libertine political coalition entered into the running, countered by various Whig remnants, and other partisan groups attempting to vie for political influence and the government, primarily of Conservative origin.
It was a relief to many that the Duke of Newcastle would not be participating in the government after the election. The primary Whig faction leader, Duke of Grafton, attempted to win favor in the pre-election political tug of war, but Lord North, his closest political ally, made several gaffes in the run-up to the general election, causing the support for the Duke of Grafton to falter; heavily damaging his cause.
The Marquess of Rockingham, leader of one of the more minority factions in the massive Whig movement managed to win in 1768, and took the office of Prime Minister from Newcastle. Rockingham decided to extend his political power by co-opting the support of the Libertine movement. They had entered the Parliament full-force, looking to achieve their heavily liberal political aims without hesitation, much to the dismay of many moderate and conservative leaders and members of Parliament. Rockingham managed to negotiate their support in exchange for one thing -- the ban of slave trade.
The ban of slave trade went into effect in 1769 with the Slave Trade Act. This had come much to the outrage of the Southern and West Indian colonists, who relied on the slave labor to fulfill their tobacco, cotton and sugar plantation production; which was cheap, and easy. Many colonies and administrative zones discontent with the British ban on slave trade began to disobey the government, and smuggling raids on West Africa by colonial privateers became more and more prominent by the start of the 1770s.
In 1771, the HMS Essex, a Royal Navy ship, stopped a small fleet of colonial ships outside Charleston Harbor, under suspicion they were conducting acts contrary to British law, primarily, smuggling illegal goods (they didn't know what kind, they had been tipped off by an average colonist.)
Searching the ship, they found several hundred African slaves, to be traded without British knowledge, to plantations across the Southern and West Indian colonies. This action lead to the British to forcibly police the harbors across the Southern colonies, and close the port of Charleston to any non-approved traffic. The colony of South Carolina protested the action, and was snubbed not only by the British government, but by the other colonies.
These actions lead to the formation of the New Bern Congress, in the Colony of North Carolina, representing a number of the colonies affected by the ban on slave trade. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina were all representatives of the meeting, with Georgia declining to attend, as well as Maryland. Both states were uninterested in backing the violation of this British law; Georgia was a penal colony and the various members of Georgia's leadership had no interest in invoking British ire. Maryland, was disinterested in backing a potentially rebellious organization, and the Northern colonies were either hostile to those violating the slave trade, or simply did not care as much as would typically be expected, particularly because British wrath was not focused on the Northern colonies, which happily continued trading with Britain.
Washington, in opposition of the borderline treasonous actions of Virginia, manumitted his slaves, and began to seriously worry about his estate at Mount Vernon being destroyed, or severely damaged by a potentially awful war. With his wife's assistance, in 1772, he contracted several men to start transferring his goods and important belongings from his manor at Mount Vernon, to his manor in Montréal.
During the growing battle between the colonies and the mother government over the rights to the slave trade, the Northern colonies were, in a word, less concerned with the state of affairs there. John Adams was a rather well-known lawyer in the Colony of Massachusetts. In the 1760s, he was a key legal expert in several cases brought to the attention of the colony, strengthening his position as a lawyer.
The Crown's attentions were drawn to him after one of his position papers was penned and published in a legal journal. The position paper was a masterfully written criticism of the potential legal loopholes in the Slave Trade Act, and the potential ramifications of a rebellion in the South, which seemed more palpable than ever by the beginning of the 1770s.
John Adams would serve as the prosecution for the trial that convicted most of the slavers that had been seized by the Royal Navy in the 1771 Essex raid. Thanks to his legal battle, and the Crown's deep pockets and obvious favor in court, the men were convicted in short order, and hung. Adams' performance as prosecutor and his quick-witted legal mind had earned him an offer from a Scottish barrister who had been in the Colonies at the Crown's insistence for the Essex ruling.
The man proposed to John that he come to work with him back home, and that he could pay him handsomely with the kind of clients they would draw in as legal partners. John accepted the proposal and left Boston Harbor in 1772 for Scotland with his new partner, William Murray, the 1st Earl of Mansfield.
The Southern Rebellion
The situation in the colonies continued to boil, before it finally boiled over in May 1774. Several colonists stormed a military arsenal in Williamsburg, Virginia, and burned several buildings to the ground in an act of rebellion against the Crown. This raid in Williamsburg was conducted by the Brotherhood of the Golden Circle. The Brotherhood of the Golden Circle was a recently organized radical revolutionary organization whom were dedicated to the creation of a militant, Roman-esque dictatorial republic that spanned a large swath of the American colonies, New Spain, and New Granada, as well as the Caribbean colonies. It was envisioned that this empire would use the institution of slavery to build a "nation of golden glory", that would overshadow every empire that came before, including Rome.
This sort of revolutionary zeal was met with extreme distaste in the Northern colonies, as well as Quebèc. This coincided with the final act of the New Bern Congress, which formally issued a Proclamation of Independence, bringing the North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia colonies into a state of rebellion against the Empire. Immediately springing into action, the disorganized militias of all three colonies moved to push the British out with haste. However, Thomas Gage's military command in Virginia quickly stamped out the uppity, rebellious Virginian militia near Williamsburg and kept the rebellion out of the capital of the colony, confining it entirely to the interior of Virginia.
It was that very fact that gave a significant problem to the British -- the Brotherhood had a classical advantage in a war -- they could effectively wage a war of attrition against Britain in the forests and dense interior of North America, granting them ample time to organize and potentially run an offensive against the British Empire.
And thusly, this was the way things worked for several years during the war -- Britain would conduct a sweeping search for them in the forests in Virginia, or wherever they were informed that the soldiers were hiding, and the Brotherhood unit would ambush the British, take some casualties, and move to another area. This persistent, yet annoying war caused many Virginians to permanently abandon their mother colony for other places, and displaced many who were opposed to the institutions being so ardently defended in those colonies.
The Great War
However, many other events began to generate that kind of pressed upon the British Empire in many ways. While the Southern rebellion was indeed detestable, many people who were of revolutionary “change everything” mindset, while not adhering to the liberal writings of many authors of the period. To compound on the growing possibility of a militant Roman-esque republican movement to take hold in Europe, France and Spain were not opposed to forcibly getting revenge on the British for the humiliation of 1765.
The sinking of the HMS Culloden in August 1776 is considered by modern historians to be the start of the Great War. The HMS Culloden was sunk by a French warship in the Channel after the British warship had fired a warning shot at the French one for passing too close to British waters, and to warn it to keep it’s distance. The British navy exacted revenge by pursuing the French warship into Austrian-held Ghent. Despite Austrian protests, the British navy launched a catastrophic attack on the port, sinking several French ships, and causing immense damage to the port itself. Austria, outraged, demanded an apology, but received lip-service from London.
This action lead to the tripartite recognition of the infantile “Republic of America” by Spain, France and Austria, whom attempted to defeat Britain on a domestic front, and to defeat Britain on an international front. The United Provinces kept neutrality in the immediate, but was heavily banking the anti-British coalition with assistance and guidance.
While Britain continued to deal with the now Spanish-backed Brotherhood in America, the Dutch began to step up their aggressive trade practices, namely, shutting British merchants out of the Cape Colony in a daring act of aggression. Infuriated, Britain threatened the United Provinces to allow British merchants. When the British conducted a show of force, the United Provinces declared its alliance with the Triple, now Quadruple Alliance against her.
Britain found allies in not only Prussia, a long-time rival of Austria, but also the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. Russia had declared its vocal support for the British, but shortly after declaring such, Catherine II dealt with a large-scale peasant revolt near the Volga, deterring her and Russia from conducting intervention in the events that followed.
The Security
A major change in the balance of power in Europe was the successful staving off of partition in the late 18th century, giving the Polish-Lithuanian state time to reorganize. While Austria, Prussia and Russia had designs on Polish soil in the 18th century, the escalation toward, and outbreak of the Great War had changed all this.
Even as early as the Seven Years War, the war and continually growing tensions between the powers of Western Europe distracted Prussia, Russia and Austria from their designs on Poland, as did the tensions between themselves. With global focus on the New World and the conflict in both America and the Holy Roman Empire (between pro-British princedoms and the Emperor, as well as Prussia vs. Austria) -- the planned partitioning of Poland-Lithuania was lost to history, and never came to be as Stanislaw II and the Sejm piloted the most daring reformation in Polish history, one that would cement Poland-Lithuania as a permanent placement in history. However, these reforms would take time to undertake, but they would come.
In 1777, Britain’s attentions were three-fold -- Europe and her commitments to Brunswick-Luneburg and Hesse; America and her need to defeat and punish the Brotherhood and Spain for their impudent harassment of the British Empire; and finally, the Cape region of Africa.
The British commitment to Europe was very minor, as Prussia and Poland-Lithuania shouldered the largest share of fighting off attempts of advancement by Austria. In 1778, the war in Europe expanded to include Bavaria and most of the South German princedoms after the Crown of Bavaria came into dispute between the adventurous Habsburgs, and the other princedoms in the region, who wanted nothing to do with a Habsburg-controlled Bavaria.
Fighting in America escalated after Spain attempted to harass Britain in New Orleans and force them to retreat from the city. They attempted to break British dominion over the trade up the Mississippi River so they could fund and provide supplies to the Brotherhood in the backwoods of the American colonies. But they were unable to force Britain out of New Orleans after three weeks of mixed siege and direct combat. Their failure became particularly apparent after a Royal Navy raid on the shores of Mexico forced the attentions of the Viceroyalty to self-defense, rather than the whims of Spain’s war of aggression.
The African front began and ended much faster than was expected; the British had expected an all out "to the last man" defense... The attempts by the Dutch to hold onto their South African territories were feeble at best, and were quickly overrun by a Royal Navy task force launching from Portuguese Brazil. The Cape Colony lasted but a few weeks before the garrison there surrendered, the Dutch control of the land collapsed. The severing of Dutch control of South Africa snowballed into a quick collapse of the ability for the Dutch to conduct warfare further East. This defeat stunned and lead to a detained, yet fast enough, campaign to force the Dutch to withdraw from the East Indies, giving Britain prime control over the Indonesian islands under Dutch control.
The British almost immediately integrated the former VOC territories under the control of the EIC, whose influence spanned most of Southern Asia.
However, the British did not, at first instinct, turn control of the Cape Colony over to the East India Company. The King and Prime Minister both rejected the request from the EIC’s leadership, so instead, they subjected the colony to direct military occupation pending the establishment of a civilian colonial administration. They began canvassing potential candidates for the colonial office. The candidates they were focusing primarily on were potential legal experts who could enforce British law in full, and maintain law and order. In a letter written to the Marquess of Rockingham after discovering of the open position, George Washington spoke earnestly, recommending Thomas Jefferson as a potential candidate for leader of the Cape Colony. Washington spoke well of Jefferson’s “growing capacity for leadership, dedication to the letter of the law, and his earnest views on the world, and his faith to the Crown. I cannot think of any man more suitable to lead such a place.”
In early 1778, Jefferson was one of many men summoned to meet with the King and the Prime Minister. The meeting was to vet and gauge each potential candidate’s capabilities with taking up the position. Jefferson was one of the few men singled out as possible candidates. Concerns were had that a man from the rebellious part of the Empire couldn’t be trusted to govern the Cape effectively. Discussions and negotiations continued as Jefferson returned to Montreal in the service of Sir Washington.
At the start of 1779, the Brotherhood was finally scattered and Britain declared, in effect, a victory in North America after the leader of the movement, a man named Willard Hayes, was apprehended and taken to Williamsburg to face justice. He was dropped from the gallows in full public view, much to the jubilee of a large crowd of Loyalists. The rest of the Brotherhood was either rounded up, or managed to flee into hiding, to live to fight another day.
The pointed end to the abortive revolution in the colonies caused several British officials to consider the state of relations in the colonies. The three colonies whom were involved in the rebellion, were placed under military control and soldiers were imposed for police purposes. At Governor Washington’s urging in a letter to General Gage, the military commander of the three colonies, instituted a series of rights given to the colonists under the rule. There were guarantees that soldiers would be given housing, but those who housed the troops would be given a government stipend for the expenses incurred, and that the government would increase any rationed goods for that household whose writ of housing bore the seal of the commander of the garrison.
When order was imposed on the colonies, there was a measurable amount of grumbling, but Washington’s influence with General Gage kept the colonists from being strangled beneath the Royal Army’s rule.
In the summer of 1779, Jefferson received a letter in Montreal from London, informing him of the crown’s offer of appointment as Lord Governor of the Cape Colony. He would have a Crown-appointed deputy in the form of Lord North. The Prime Minister was eager to see one of his most vitriolic opponents be removed from the scene entirely, and managed to coerce Lord North, whom harbored great doubts of Jefferson’s capacity to lead, to take up the Deputy Governor position in the colony. On October 30, Jefferson formally handed his resignation as Legal Counsel to Governor Washington, and bid him farewell. Washington, in a gesture of good faith to Jefferson, gave to him his ceremonial officer’s sword, and wished him well. In Washington’s diaries, released to the public by the government of Vesperia in 1993 (200th anniversary of his death), he wrote a statement about Jefferson.
”Thomas Jefferson was a man I shall remember for the rest of my days. His passion for the law, and his passion to do what was right over what was proper… was astounding for me. When I was informed that the Cape Colony had been seized by the Crown, and the office was open, I recommended him with haste -- I would miss having the most experienced legal counsel in Quebec in my court, but I felt that he would do great things there.”
Of great interest to historians, is the lines that came after that. Many historians, from Concordiopolis to Montreal, marvel at Washington’s prophesying.
”...I should not be surprised should that little colony that fell to the Empire in a matter of little time become an Empire in it’s own right. One day, Cape Town shall serve as more than a connector between Europe and Asia, and Jefferson will set it on it’s path, and the Cape shall become the sword and shield of freedom and liberty. I have never met a man so determined with changing the world.”
On June 22, 1780; Thomas Jefferson and a small party of advisors gathered from the Northern Colonies and Quebec, arrived on the shores of Cape Town, and were happily welcomed by Lord North and the Royal Navy task force that had taken the colony.
While Jefferson took his seat in the Cape as the Lord Governor, the Great War approached it's end. With the American front all but over as Mexico continued to resist Spanish directives due to a Mayan and pro-independence uprising across the North and Southern regions. Britain consolidated her hold over her colonies, and struck hard against the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, removing the last resistance to British domination in the region, as Hispanola and Puerto Rico fell to Britain's advances. Britain also advanced into Louisiana, taking control of the sparsely settled region.
The war came to a final conclusion in 1781 with the Treaty of Leipzig, concluding peace between all the major powers of the war. The Polish had reclaimed Galicia-Lodomeria from the control of Austria, while the Palatine branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty ascended to control over the Bavarian crown, marking a major defeat on two fronts for the Austrians.
The third major front of defeat for Austria was their inability to sufficiently expel Britain from the Electorate of Brunswick-Luneburg, which remained under their control via a personal union between George III and the German state. Spain lost significant grounds in the Caribbean and North America, and now faced the threat of revolution in Mexico; France had failed to reconquer Canada and had made no major strides towards weakening British power, and the Netherlands had lost her entire empire by the barrel of the British gun.
As the ink dried upon the Treaty of Leipzig, problems were already beginning to rise in many places, which would put the current world order into jeopardy...
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