Political economy behind the colonies’ break with Britain

Several pressures lay behind the colonial rupture. Some settlers had crossed the Atlantic to escape institutions they disliked, while others pursued commercial opportunity and preferred the lightest possible taxation. North American colonial elites and Britain’s governing elite became progressively less aligned under Hanoverian rule. London also found it easier to seek additional colonial revenue than to reform policy at home. Commercial attention followed profit: the Hudson’s Bay Company and East India Company appeared lucrative, while organizations trading with mainland North America produced less attractive returns. Together, these political and economic incentives offer a more complicated explanation than any single cause of revolution.