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FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #23 Don't cut off a police car when making an illegal U-turn.


arts / alt.history.what-if / How could George III have kept the Thirteen Colonies? (ASB)

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o How could George III have kept the Thirteen Colonies? (ASB)Graham Truesdale

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How could George III have kept the Thirteen Colonies? (ASB)

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Subject: How could George III have kept the Thirteen Colonies? (ASB)
From: graham.t...@gmail.com (Graham Truesdale)
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 by: Graham Truesdale - Sat, 28 Oct 2023 22:56 UTC

POD – on 11th February 1763 (the day after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1763) ) King George III receives a visit from an Alien Space Bat which informs him of the next 20 years’ history of his North American colonies until https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783) . Following that visit, George tries to work out what he can do to ensure that the colonies remain British, in the same way that Nova Scotia did in OTL. His freedom to act is constrained by his position as a constitutional monarch.
He decides either not to issue the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Proclamation_of_1763 at all, or at least not to do so without consulting the colonies.
He is aware of the future slogan ‘no taxation without representation’, so he has to decide whether he will go for less taxation with the same amount of representation (none), or the same amount of taxation with more representation. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#History – no constituency had been enfranchised by the Crown since 1673 (before the Glorious Revolution). I think that it would have taken legislation to create new seats in the House of Commons in the 1760’s. The proprietors of the rotten and pocket boroughs would have resisted any attempt to dilute the influence of their boroughs. There were of course the https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Treasury_borough&redirect=no Treasury boroughs, under the control of the Crown, and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_rotten_and_pocket_boroughs some of which were under the control of the Duchy of Cornwall. Given that the Prince of Wales (the future George IV) had been born the previous year, I think that nobody would have been in any position to object if the King had agreed to let the colonial legislatures choose the MPs for places like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltash_(UK_Parliament_constituency) , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaford_(UK_Parliament_constituency) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harwich_(UK_Parliament_constituency) – although he would have had to tread carefully in order to avoid people talking about the Madness of King George. He might have suggested a system like the Scots Districts of Burghs, where the New England Colonies choose one MP, the Middle Colonies another, and the Southern Colonies another. Nova Scotia might have claimed one as well. He would presumably have induced the sitting MPs to accept the Chiltern Hundreds immediately, so that the colonies would not have to wait until the next general election in order to exercise their patronage.
Do people think that there might have been less resistance to paying taxes on the colonies to clear the cost of the Seven Years’ War (such as those imposed under the Stamp Act) if the de facto MPs for the colonies had been able to vote on them?

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