Trouble in the Colonies

I am given to understand that the residents of the former British colonies in North America south of the St Lawrence are celebrating the anniversary of their breaking away from the Crown two hundred and fifty years ago. 

The National Archives at Kew recently discovered that their holdings included one of the eleven surviving first printed copies of the Declaration of Independence, and the only one of these outside the USA. It was printed at Exeter in New Hampshire between July 16th and 19th 1776. 

It is shown and its history set out, explaining how it came to Great Britain in Rare 1776 Declaration of Independence discovered at The National Archives

A friend has shared with me the following from the Prayers issued in 1776 by the Church of England:

O Lord God of our salvation, in whose hands are the issues of life and death, of good and evil, and without whose aid the wisest counsels of frail men, and the multitude of an host, and all the instruments of war are but weak and vain; incline thine ear, we pray thee, to the earnest and devout supplications of thy servants, who, not confiding in the splendour of any thing that is great, or the stability of any thing that is strong here below, do most humbly flee, O Lord, unto thee for succour, and put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Be thou to us a tower of defence against the assaults of our enemies, our shield and buckler in the day of battle, and so bless the arms of our gracious Sovereign, in the maintenance of His just and lawful rights, and prosper His endeavours to restore tranquillity among His unhappy deluded subjects in America, now in open rebellion against His Crown, in defiance of all subordination and legal government, that we being preserved by thy help and goodness from all perils and disasters, and made happily triumphant over all the disturbers of our peace, may joyfully laud and magnify thy glorious Name; and serve thee from generation to generation in all godliness and quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am not particularly drawn to looking at counter factuals in history as one can normally only take one step on such routes before moving into historic fiction. Yes, suppose the Thirteen Colonies had not broken away, or other European powers had not intervened to score points, or had the British defeated the rebels ….. but what then? A larger Canada? Two or three federal Atlantic dominions? We cannot know, and indeed can hardly, realistically, imagine.

Equally would there have been a Civil War between north and south, or would the policies voted through the Westminster Parliament have resolved the situation a generation earlier?

We might be on safer ground if we reflect of how continuing British rule along the Atlantic seaboard and west of the Appalachians according to the 1763 treaties might have affected what is now the USA. We need to recall that British policy was not to expand westwards towards the Mississippi because there was no desire to become one over extended nor to take territory from the native Americans. Those were not, as soon became clear after 1783, the attitudes of many of the colonists.

One wonders would Louisiana - and this all hinges on what happened to France having nearly bankrupted itself intervening in the British colonies and the part that played in the very regrettable events in France after 1789, be a Francophone state ruled by the French crown, or whatever form of government that country had at any particular time? If so would it stretch from the mouth right across the basin of the Mississippi to the Rockies?

As for the west if  New Spain had broken up as it did would Mexico extend as far as the Pacific North West? 

Would Texas still be part of Mexico? Would Mexico still be an Empire ruled by the Iturbide dynasty (they still survive as a family)

Russian rule might still continue in Alaska and Hawaii might be an independent kingdom like Tonga.

On this significant anniversary I send my greetings and good wishes to my friends and readers in the rebel colonies and hope for their peace and prosperity, and indeed their pursuit of happiness.