Afterword

Abstract

Although the North American empire collapsed in on itself between 1775 and 1782, the calamitous loss of the thirteen colonies did not signal the end of a particular phase of British imperial development. If anything, such a phase had ended during the 1760s when, for the first time, serious attempts had been made to bring the expansionist process under control from the centre. Of course, the importance of the loss of America cannot be understated because it shook Britain to its foundations and had a profound effect upon economic and political life. However, this trauma did not lead to the emergence of a radically different set of ideas and assumptions about the overseas empire. Instead, lines of development that had become clear in the 1760s were extended and sharpened in the new conditions that prevailed during the 1780s and 1790s. In particular, the authoritarian legacy of the 1760s ensured that the late eighteenth century was characterized by repeated and ever more ambitious attempts to assert government authority over key areas of imperial activity through the ‘creation of new institutions of control, coercion, and audit’.¹