British protectorate

“ Undoubtedly the splendid structure of the British Empire was not erected without armed support. The creation, without an army organization, of a Sovereign State comprising a fourth of the Globe, which component parts, themselves of colossal proportions, situated in all the continents, separated by the immensity of the seas, would have been more than marvellous.
I will not pretend that always and everywhere the expansion of British Sovereignty has taken place according to the dictates of strict justice. ”

“ ON RESISTANCE TO GREAT BRITAIN From a speech in the Provincial Convention, Virginia, March, 1775
BY PATRICK HENRY I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and to rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. ”

“ What can the Colonies do to help Great Britain under such conditions? For the command of the sea nothing, and even if each of them had a first-rate army, what would be the use of those armies to this country in her hour of need? They cannot be brought to Europe unless the British navy commands the sea.
These are some of the material consequences of defeat. But what of its spiritual consequences? We have brought up our children in the pride of a great nation, and taught them of an Empire on which the sun never sets. ”

“ Resolved That these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the british crown and that all political connection between them and the state of great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved
That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. ”

“ Such a federation would make Great Britain an enormous power. The British possessions are scattered all over the globe. Were she to federate with her colonies the declaration of war on her part with any country would mean that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and British South America would all join in the fight, and help to uphold England's quarrel. England could then dictate to the world, and her power would exceed that of ancient Rome in its days of greatest glory. ”

“ Provided that neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every assurance would be given to the British Government that the Imperial Government aimed at no territorial acquisitions at the expense of France, should they prove victorious in any war that might ensue. ”

“ BRITISH NEUTRALITY AND BELLIGERENCY Over and over again I heard the chances of British neutrality and belligerency discussed by141 statesmen of the two military Empires, and the odds in favour of our holding strictly aloof from hostilities were set down as equivalent to certainty. The grounds for this conviction were numerous, and to them convincing. Great Britain, it was argued, possesses no land army capable of throwing an expeditionary force of any value into the Continental arena. ”

“ By the same rule, seeing a war exists between Great Britain and France, you may capture and recapture as aforesaid on all the coasts of the British dominions and of all places subject to the British power. But you are to refrain from exercising the aforesaid powers of capturing and recapturing in waters which are under the protection of any other nations, that their peace and sovereignty may remain unviolated. ”

“ Thus we are told that England first protected by her restrictive policy, her whole empire against all the world, then Great Britain against the colonies, then the British islands against each other, and ended by vainly attempting to protect all the great interests and employment of the state by balancing them against each other. Sir, such a system, carried fully out, is not confined to rival nations, but protects one town against another, considers villages, and even families as rivals ”

“ To the Liberals it meant presumption, a love of show and of sounding titles, a readiness to annex to the right hand and the left, a proneness to intervene in foreign quarrels, "a policy of bluster," in short. But in the mouth of its exponents Imperialism meant a desire to knit more closely together Great Britain and her colonies; to treat the empire as a whole, and to govern it without any slavish subservience to the "parochial politics" of England; to make the British name respected by civilized and feared by barbarous neighbours. ”

“ Scattered as it is over all the seas of the world, the British Empire would undoubtedly be broken into fragments if the security of the ocean high-roads by which it is united were ever to be lost. But although the British Navy has made the growth of the Empire possible, and has held it together, it has not conquered it. A fleet cannot conquer great areas of land; it cannot hold masses of discontented subjects in an unwilling obedience; it cannot threaten the freedom or independence of any land-power. It is strong only for defence, not for offence. ”

“ BEFORE considering the aggressions of the British government upon our shipping during the period between the Revolution and the War of 1812, it seems still more necessary than it was in the case of the French to try to get the point of view of the aggressor. The men who governed England were placed in power not only to guard but to promote English interests against those of all other nations. ”

“ If any of the provinces of the British empire cannot be made to contribute towards the support of the whole empire, it is surely time that Great Britain should free herself from the expense of defending those provinces in time of war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military establishment in time of peace ”

“ If England tells the colonies that she needs their help, they will come, because their people are flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, and also because they depend for their defense upon her navy, and if she were to go under they would go under, too. But the continental nations have no such claims upon the British colonies, which would not be in a hurry to make sacrifices in order to satisfy their appetites or their passions. ”

“ No power from the Atlantic seaboard to the Ural Mountains, save that one alone which contemplated the conquest and spoliation of its neighbours, would have been disquieted—or indeed anything else but reassured—had the British people decided to create such an army. For by reason of England's peculiar interests—or rather perhaps from her lack of all direct personal interests in European affairs, other than in peace and the balance of power—she was marked out as the natural mediator in Continental disputes. ”

“ As a result of long discussion, the British House of Commons in 1862 unanimously resolved that 'colonies exercising the right of self-government ought to undertake the main responsibility of providing for their own internal order and security and ought to assist in their own external defence.' The duty of the United Kingdom to undertake the general defence of the Empire was equally understood ”

“ An effort for the liberties of mankind by colonial opposition to the parent state, the proud and potent sovereignty of Britain, might rationally be expected to have an influence on the political systems of the greatest part of Europe. Besides, the intrigues of the British cabinet and the policy of France might cooperate to postpone the event of any foreign alliance with the colonies, until American firmness had been tried in the ordeal of affliction, and her constancy and success had rendered her more respectable in the eyes of older nations and long practiced statesmen. ”

“ The navy has another incomparable adaptation to the especial circumstances of England. Her empire is colonial: the extent of Great Britain itself scarcely equals one of those provinces beyond the ocean which Providence has given into her hands. Their defence, their maintenance, and their existence, must depend on the superiority of our fleet: if it were once extinguished, the British empire must be again contracted within the British Isles. ”

“ I beg, however, to ask, why is Great Britain become, as it were, timid, or reluctant to declare, that no act nor pretensions on the part of the United States can give them a right to incorporate British subjects into their Union without the consent of our Government; and why is it not made known, by proclamation, or otherwise, all over the world, that British-born subjects have no right to renounce, and that they can never be looked upon as having renounced, in whatever part of the world they may think fit to reside, their allegiance to their Queen ”

“ They were not even required to raise troops for the defence of their own frontiers except of their own free will, and the main burden of defending even their landward frontier was borne by the mother-country. But being British they had the instinct of self-government in their blood and bones, and they found that the control of their own affairs was qualified or limited in two principal ways. ”

“ There is only one way out of the difficulty—that is, to find the material basis of our defence policy, not in the United Kingdom, but in the British Empire. At present that Empire is unorganized and undeveloped; but if we can unite its scattered components, and develop its vast territories and immense natural resources, then we may hope to build up an industrial power, and to create a population fully capable of providing for the needs of Imperial policy without fainting beneath the burden. ”

“ The war once begun, the Government, anxious to keep clear of it, was prompt in proclaiming neutrality and hastened this step for fear of maritime complications with that one of the belligerents, the North, which alone possessed a naval force. But the British Ministry, like that of every other European state, believed that a revolution for independence when undertaken by a people so numerous and powerful as that of the South, must ultimately succeed. ”

“ We have seen the discontents of the colonies ripen into open rebellion in this hot-bed of patriotism; we have seen a Continental army organized, disciplined, and prepared for action, and those yeomanry and artisans, drawn from the fields and workshops, piling, with seeming Titan strength, huge fortifications around a well-disciplined British army, and expelling it from one of the most advantageous positions on the continent. ”

“ It is sufficient, perhaps, to say that the old American colonies, when they had but a million and a half of people, defended themselves successfully against the then all-powerful French, and that there is no instance of a self-protected English colony being conquered by the foreigner. The American colonies valued so highly their independence of the old country in the matter of defense that they petitioned the Crown to be allowed to fight for themselves, and called the British army by the plain name of “grievance.” ”

“ That the parliament of Great Britain had full power to bind America in all matters touching the weal of the whole dominion of the crown of Great Britain, and especially in making laws for the regulation of navigation and trade throughout the complicated system of British commerce, etc.; that it should be declared that no military force could ever be lawfully employed to destroy the best rights of the people, while at the same time the authority of sending troops to the colonies of the British dominions should be maintained, independent of the voice of the provincial assemblies in the colonies ”

“ The desire to secure the control of the raw materials of those industries, and to develop new and sure markets for their products, led to the acquisition of our Colonial Empire, and stimulated its development. It has often been said that the British Empire sprang up unconsciously, as a result of British trade, that our defence policy was based on our trade interests, and that our wars were the outcome of trade disputes. But it is at least equally true that British trade and the British Empire were created for the sake of national defence. ”

“ The great free nations of the Empire—Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand—prepared to raise and send troops, and the smallest Crown colonies made their contributions in money or supplies. India, whom Germany believed to be disloyal, at once agreed to send two infantry divisions and one cavalry brigade, and all the native rulers and princes placed their resources at the King-Emperor's call. Almost every Indian chief offered personal service in the field. ”

“ While it is obvious that Imperial Federation of the British Empire would cover many of the defects in our relationship with the colonies, it is equally apparent that it is open to the fatal objection of merely making us a more formidable factor in the field of international anarchy. ”

“ If the whole of our North American territories had arrived at a certain point, when an increased, educated, and intelligent population, and improved resources, had made it safe for them as one nation, to be allowed [Pg 308] entirely to manage their own affairs without any interference on the part of the mother country, and that they really desired to do so, Great Britain ought readily to comply with their wishes, yet still remaining their friend and protector, and receiving, in return, every commercial advantage ”

“ England, having then engrossed the whole wealth of the colonial world; England, having lost nothing of its original possessions; England then comes forward, proposing general peace, and offering—what? offering the surrender of all that it had acquired, in order to obtain—what? not the dismemberment, not the partition of ancient France, but the return of a part of those conquests, no one of which could be retained but in direct contradiction to that original and solemn pledge which is now referred to as the proof of the just and moderate disposition of the French Republic. ”