Just plain ignorant - 5 April 2009 |
|
The effectiveness of Britain’s government of America during the late 18th century was hampered by the simple fact that British ministers knew next to nothing about the land across the water.
That the British were invincibly uninformed – and stayed uninformed – about the people they insisted on ruling was a major problem of the imperial-colonial relationship. (Tuchman, March of Folly, p. 194)
For example, the infamous ‘Quebec Act’, which proposed to extend ‘Canada’s boundaries to the Ohio river, where Virginia and other colonies had territorial claims’ aroused the comment from Governor Johnstone that there appeared to be ‘a great disposition in this house to proceed in this business without knowing anything of the constitution of America’ (pp. 198-199).
More ominous than such simple ignorance of facts were the ignorant moral judgments routinely passed by influential British thinkers. Dr Samuel Johnson, for example, opined that the Americans were ‘a race of convicts and ought to be grateful for anything we allow them beyond hanging,’ and declared, ‘I am willing to love all mankind except an American’ (pp. 203, 213). Not an attitude calculated to engender respect for one’s leaders.
Even more destructive in practical terms was the British underestimate of the American fighting spirit. Most apparently shared Lord Sandwich’s view that the Americans were ‘raw undisciplined cowardly men,’ who would either ‘run away’ at the first sign of trouble or else ’starve themselves into compliance with our measures’ (p. 206). Perhaps that explains why Sandwich, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had ‘done nothing to prepare the navy … in fact, he had reduced its strength by 4000 men’ (p. 207). Well, what do you expect when the British government relied on this appointment process?
In the end, it fell to John Wesley to speak some sense:
From the reports of his preachers in America he knew that the colonists were not peasants ready to run at the first sight of a redcoat or the sound of a musket, but hardy frontiersmen fit for war. They would not be easily defeated. ‘No, my Lord, [he wrote to Lord Dartmouth] they are terribly united … For God’s sake,’ Wesley concluded, ‘Remember Rehoboam!’ (p. 207)
| Tweet | Post comment via Facebook |
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Books, Minister's Blog, The March of Folly