Quote Originally Posted by MacMillan of Rathdown View Post
Todd,
Thanks for the kudos!

I've always found it interesting that many of those agitating for "revolution" at the time of the founding of the United States seem to have been millionaire land owners, shipping tycoons, and politically powerful lawyers/legislators. Now it is a matter of fact that from the establishment of the Jamestown Colony in 1608 until the Declaration of Independence in 1776 not a single gentleman in the whole of the North American colonies was elevated to the peerage, and only one (!) received a knighthood.

I can not help but wonder if a liberal sprinkling of coronets and k's (as was the case in Ireland during the same period) might not have forestalled the eventual rupture that occurred between the colonies and the Mother country?

And had the revolution failed, do you suppose that we would now be wringing our hands over the Great North American clearances? Perhaps from our home in Barbados or elsewhere in the Empire?

Scott
Noted military historian Don Higginbotham addresses this issue in his book George Washington and the American Military Tradition. Higginbotham suggests that had Washington received a commission in the British Army, he probably would have not joined the rebels -- granted, it's been years since my military history class where I read this book, but it made a pretty profound impression on me.

And again, you are spot on -- most of the rebel leaders were the wealthy landowners and merchants, many of whom were in debt to London, Liverpool and Glasgow firms as they tried to duplicate "the good life" of Britain in wild America. In the Hudson River Valley, the Ango-Dutch patricians, the Lords of the Hudson, were the rebels, while their tenants remained loyal. Slaves rallied to Lord Dunmore of Virginia, who promised them freedom if they would serve in a loyalist "Ethiopian" regiment.

How does this tie into the Scots? Well, most Highlanders who immigrated also remained loyal to the crown, for various reasons. The very people you would expect to rebel -- didn't.

Regards,

Todd