Struan, Andrew David (2010) 'Judgement and Experience'? British politics, Atlantic connexions and the American Revolution. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1845/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] ‘JUDGEMENT AND EXPERIENCE’? BRITISH POLITICS, ATLANTIC CONNEXIONS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Andrew David Struan, MA, MPhil Department of History Faculty of Arts University of Glasgow Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy ©Andrew Struan 2010 2 ABSTRACT In one of his publications, the politician and merchant Anthony Bacon asked if ‘some honest Persons, of plain Understanding, and of tolerable Judgement and Experience, could be engaged, at the Government’s Expence, to make the general Tour of North America ’. This person, he thought, would be able to forge a connexion between the metropolitan centre and the far-flung reaches of America and improve the relationship between mother country and colony by increasing the level of understanding of the other on both sides of the Atlantic. Bacon appreciated that this lack of knowledge of their American brethren meant that British politics and politicians were often working with limited, or biased, information when formulating imperial policy. This thesis analyses the ways six MPs with significant American connexions operated throughout the imperial crises of the 1760s and 1770s. It establishes that these men operated at the highest levels of British politics at this time and sought to create themselves as the predominant experts on the American colonies. In the debates on the nature of the British Empire throughout the 1760s and 1770s, these men were at the forefront of the political mind and, at least until the hardening of opinions in the 1770s, had an impact on the way in which the colonies were governed. More than that, however, this work has shown that – contrary to much earlier belief – the House of Commons in the later eighteenth century was not working in ignorance of the situation in the Americas: rather, there were a small but significant number of men with real and personal connexions to, and knowledge about, the colonies. As the imperial grounds shifted through the 1770s, however, even the most well-versed of these ‘American MPs’ began to appear to have suffered some disconnection from the colonial viewpoint. This thesis takes into account the Atlantic and imperial networks under which these MPs worked and formed their political theories and opinions. In addition, it seeks in some way to bring the politics of the American Revolution into the fold of Atlantic History and to assess the ways in which those with the greatest experience of working in the peripheries of empire sought to reshape and reorganise its structure from the metropole after the close of the Seven Years War. 3 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 6 THE SIXTEEN ................................................................................................................................... 7 HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ATLANTIC WORLD ........................................ 10 THESIS LAYOUT ............................................................................................................................. 21 THE SIX .......................................................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER I................................................................................................................................. 35 GOVERNING AN EMPIRE : THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND AMERICA ......................................... 35 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND AMERICA ..................................................................................... 38 ‘E RRORS IN AMERICAN POLITICKS IN 100 PLACES ’: MP S AND COLONIAL ISSUES ....................... 41 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 74 CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................... 76 LOSING AN EMPIRE : THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND AMERICA ................................................. 76 ‘B OSTON , BLOODY BOSTON !’ ....................................................................................................... 79 ‘A UNIVERSAL PRESCRIPTION ’: CONTROLLING MASSACHUSETTS ............................................... 86 ‘A S FROM THE THRONE OF HEAVEN ’: THE QUEBEC ACT ............................................................. 93 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 98 CHAPTER III............................................................................................................................ 102 TRUTHS WHICH SHOULD BE KNOWN : THE POLITICAL TEXTS OF BACON AND POWNALL ...... 102 ‘B RINGING THE CONTENDING PARTIES TO REASON ’: THE WORKS OF ANTHONY BACON ......... 103 ‘A LL THE RIGHT OF FREEDOM ’: THE WORKS OF THOMAS POWNALL ........................................ 120 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 142 CHAPTER IV............................................................................................................................ 144 AN EMPIRE OF LIBERTY ? THE BRITISH ATLANTIC WORLD ..................................................... 144 ‘T HE RULE OF CONDUCT ON THIS OCCASION ’ ............................................................................ 149 ATLANTIC ARGUMENTS ; OCEANIC UNION .................................................................................. 157 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 160 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 162 APPENDIX I.............................................................................................................................. 166 APPENDIX II ............................................................................................................................ 177 COMMITTEE OF LONDON MERCHANTS (WRITTEN BY TRECOTHICK ) TO THETOWN OF NORWICH , 4 DECEMBER 1765................................................................................................... 177 APPENDIX III........................................................................................................................... 178 4 SPEECH BY POWNALL IN HOUSE OF COMMONS (8 FEBRUARY 1769)..................................... 178 APPENDIX IV........................................................................................................................... 181 SPEECH BY BURKE IN HOUSE OF COMMONS (25 MARCH 1774) ............................................. 181 APPENDIX V ............................................................................................................................ 183 LETTER FROM POWNALL TO GRENVILLE (14 JULY 1768) AND GRENVILLE ’S REPLY (17 JULY 1768)............................................................................................................................................ 183 APPENDIX VI........................................................................................................................... 187 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 189 ARCHIVAL SOURCES .................................................................................................................. 189 PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES .................................................................................................... 189 MONOGRAPHS ............................................................................................................................ 193 ARTICLES AND ESSAYS .............................................................................................................. 198 UNPUBLISHED DISSERTATIONS ................................................................................................. 201 INTERNET RESOURCES .............................................................................................................. 201 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The composition of this type of project naturally causes a great number of debts on my part, and these are debts which I can not really repay in kind but can hope they are ones for which I can make some type of amends. Firstly, I would like to thank the Department of History at the University of Glasgow for having supported, educated and enlightened my thoughts for almost a decade of undergraduate