ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the Proposals for Uniting the English Colonies on the Continent of America so as to Enable them to Act with Force and Vigour against their Enemies. Henry McCulloh was yet another figure who concerned himself with the imperial crisis of the mid 1750s. McCulloh proposed methods to collect quit-rents and in May 1739 was appointed Commissioner for Inspecting and Controlling the Royal Revenues and grants of Land in North Carolina, despite securing his own exemption from quit-rents. McCulloh undoubtedly genuinely believed that colonies’ ‘Power in a Legislative Capacity originally flows from the Crown, under certain Limitations and Restrictions, particularly that of not passing any Laws, but such as are consistent with the Constitution and Laws of this Kingdom’. Measures McCulloh advocates ‘to form an Union of the Colonies in America for their general Defence and Protection’ mean extending the British fiscal-military state in the colonies.