Re-writing the empire: Plans for institutional reform in British America, 1675--1791

This dissertation analyzes nearly 200 plans for institutional reform in British America between 1675 and 1791. In doing so, it views the colonial period from an imperial perspective, since plans incorporated North America, the West Indies and Great Britain as an integrative whole. Reform plans addressed practical problems in colonial administration, trade, defense, and the constitutional connection between the colonies and the mother country. In the attempt to devise solutions, men throughout the empire---including colonial governors and assemblymen, Members of Parliament, merchants, customs officers, economists, and colonial agents in London---constructed plans that sought to improve the imperial connection by strengthening institutions. This study thus emphasizes the empire as planners viewed it, as an institution writ large, with integrally-connected parts secured by bonds of commerce, affection, government, common heritage, religion, and royal political culture.;Political ideology and institutional structure influenced and reinforced each other in reform plans. The planners' ideological assumptions originated from an evolving, transatlantic, political dialogue and generally represented a positive vision of empire. In their institutional suggestions, planners employed imperial models, such as Rome, the Dutch Confederation, and the Anglo-Scottish Union. They also used legal precedent and constitutional theory to buttress plans that they believed could provide a solid, workable foundation and incorporate disparate parts of the empire.;Initially, plans focused on consolidation and centralized control; however as colonies grew and matured and the empire evolved, events demanded adaptive solutions. This created a public forum on establishing imperial equity and the constitutional foundations of the empire. It also forced advances in thinking about imperial structure that eventually led to imaginative suggestions for expanded governmental and commercial frameworks. Despite these developments, throughout the entire period of colonial reform planners sought to create order and stability, and to distill the idea of a common good into institutional form in order to create a mutually-beneficial, symbiotic imperial system. The plans thus collectively represent a consistent strain of eighteenth-century political ideology in British America that centered on the concepts of union and empire.