Great Britain

Great Britain is the distant imperial power whose rule over the American colonies Thomas Paine treats as the central obstacle to their security and political maturity. In his argument, the relationship has passed beyond a dispute over particular laws: war has made reconciliation untenable, while dependence leaves the continent exposed to conflicts and decisions made across the ocean. Great Britain therefore figures not simply as a place or trading partner, but as the authority from which the colonies must separate if they are to govern themselves and take their place among nations.

Imperial Connection and the Turn to Separation

Before hostilities began, the disagreement was principally over how to preserve a union with Great Britain: some proposed force, others friendship. The fighting that commenced on April 19, 1775, changed the terms of the debate. Earlier proposals, Paine argues, had been overtaken by events; peaceful reconciliation had withdrawn as an effective prospect, and the colonies had to reconsider the connection itself rather than merely seek a better arrangement within it.

Paine rejects the claim that the colonies’ previous prosperity proves that their future welfare depends on Great Britain. He compares that reasoning to assuming that because a child has thrived on milk, it should never eat solid food. The colonies, he argues, could have prospered at least as much without a European power directing their affairs, since their commerce consists in necessities that will find buyers wherever people trade. His distinction is between the value of commerce and the political control attached to imperial connection: trade can continue even when the countries are independent of one another.

The language of protection does not, in his account, establish a bond of disinterested care. Great Britain has defended the continent, but also at the colonists’ expense and for its own interests in trade and dominion. Paine argues that the motive was interest rather than attachment: the colonies were protected against Great Britain’s enemies, not necessarily against enemies who had an independent quarrel with the colonies. If the continent ended its dependence, he reasons, it could be at peace with France and Spain even when those powers were at war with Great Britain. The suffering of Hanover in the previous war serves as a warning against being drawn into conflicts through an imperial connection.

Distance, Government, and the Costs of Dependence

The physical distance between the governments becomes an argument about political capacity. Paine says it is beyond Great Britain’s power to administer justice to the continent: colonial affairs are too substantial and intricate to be handled conveniently by a government both far away and poorly informed about local conditions. A petitioner might have to travel three or four thousand miles, wait four or five months for an answer, and then spend another five or six months explaining it. A process once considered proper has, he says, reached the time when it must cease.

The relation between island and continent sharpens the point. Small islands unable to defend themselves may reasonably come under the care of kingdoms, but Paine considers it absurd that a continent should remain perpetually governed by an island. He frames the reversal as contrary to nature’s ordinary order and concludes that Great Britain belongs to Europe while America belongs to itself. The image turns distance into more than inconvenience: it suggests that the two places belong to different political systems.

Dependence also obstructs the colonies’ ability to avoid European wars. Since Europe is their market, Paine argues, they should not form a partial political connection with one of its competing powers. Yet while tied to Great Britain, the continent can be made a balancing instrument in British policy and drawn into wars that would otherwise be no concern of its own. A future conflict might not end as the last one did; neutrality, he suggests, would then be safer than relying on a British warship. Separation is thus presented as a means of protecting trade and preserving the option of peace, rather than as a rejection of commerce with Europe.

The same dependence limits political development. A nation whose commerce is restricted and whose legislative powers are cramped cannot attain its full stature, Paine argues. America’s growth so far is only a beginning beside what it could achieve if legislative authority were in its own hands. Great Britain might gain from American commerce, he maintains, but would gain no corresponding benefit from conquest; much of that commerce could continue even if the countries stood as independently as France and Spain. The issue is therefore not whether trade should end, but whether trade requires subordination.

War, Petition, and the Broken Relationship

Paine’s account treats the beginning of hostilities as a decisive political threshold. Before April 19, 1775, he says, he had been a strong well-wisher for reconciliation. Once the news of that day arrived, he rejected the idea of continuing under British rule. In his reasoning, the force used against the colonies and the failure of peaceful methods had changed the moral and political basis of the connection; the dispute could no longer be reduced to the repeal of particular acts.

The argument does not treat armed resistance as justified merely by a financial disagreement. Paine says that taking up arms to enforce repeal of a pecuniary law would not by itself justify the cost in human lives. What makes resistance defensible, in his account, is violence and threatened violence against people, destruction of property by armed force, and invasion by fire and sword. Once such defense became necessary, he argues, subjection to Great Britain ought to have ended. He presents independence as arising from a chain of events the colonies did not initiate, rather than from caprice or a prior ambition for expansion.

Repeated appeals have, in his view, confirmed the failure of peaceful remedies. Petitions were rejected with disdain, and Paine argues that persistent petitioning can strengthen royal vanity and obstinacy instead of securing redress. He invokes Denmark and Sweden as examples in a broader warning about the growth of absolute royal power. Since quiet methods had proved ineffectual, he calls for a final separation rather than leaving a later generation to inherit a continuing conflict under the language of parent and child.

The prospect of renewed conflict also weakens any promise that a settlement would last. Paine recalls that the repeal of the Stamp Act had led people to think the problem was resolved, only for events a year or two later to disprove that confidence. A temporary agreement could therefore defer rather than end the danger. He argues that reconciliation would be an unstable arrangement made for immediate convenience, likely to relapse into a worse conflict, and that the present winter offered a valuable opportunity to act before delay and timidity made the situation more dangerous for the continent.

Recognition Abroad and the Meaning of Independence

The continuing claim that the colonies are British subjects, Paine argues, also prevents them from acting effectively in international affairs. When two powers are at war, other powers may mediate; but while America calls itself subject to Great Britain, no outside power can properly offer mediation between them. Paine further contends that France or Spain would have little reason to assist the colonies if the aim were merely to repair their bond with Great Britain, since those powers would suffer from the restored connection.

This status creates a diplomatic contradiction. To other nations, armed resistance by people who still profess themselves British subjects looks like rebellion. Paine says the colonists on the spot can understand how resistance and subjection have come to coexist, but that the combination is too difficult for foreign courts to accept. Until independence gives the continent the standing of a separate nation, he argues, it cannot expect to be received or heard abroad on equal terms.

He proposes a public declaration sent to foreign courts that would set out the colonies’ grievances and their unsuccessful peaceful efforts to obtain redress, explain that they could no longer live safely under the British court, and announce both their separation and their willingness to trade peacefully with other nations. Such a memorial, in his view, could accomplish more than another shipload of petitions sent to Great Britain. Independence would make the colonies legible as a political party in their own right: able to seek mediation, state their case, and establish relations without asking another government to speak for them.

Great Britain in the Political Argument

The pamphlet’s presentation of Great Britain shifts the subject from reconciliation to the conditions of legitimate government. Paine depicts the connection as a structure that converts commercial and geographic closeness into political dependence, although he insists that commerce need not depend on subjection. The contrast between a vast continent and a distant island makes imperial rule appear not only inconvenient but mismatched to the scale and needs of the governed population.

Great Britain also serves as the test case for Paine’s distinction between protection and control. The protection it claims to provide is recast as an instrument of interest, while the wars it conducts become costs borne by the colonies. The political relationship thus reverses its own justification: the power said to secure the continent is, because of its conflicts and authority, the reason the continent cannot secure its peace independently.

The argument finally presents independence as a necessary change in political standing, not a demand to sever every practical connection. Commerce may continue; what must end is the authority that restricts legislation, entangles the colonies in European disputes, and leaves them unable to negotiate abroad as a nation. Great Britain’s decisive role in the text is therefore relational: it is the imperial power against which the case for self-government, neutral trade, diplomatic recognition, and a new continental political order is made.