ABSTRACT
The British imperialists deserve to have their motives and the justifications for their actions explored in as much depth as their colonial opponents, but this has rarely been attempted. There is clearly not the space to explain and justify in great detail Britain's policy towards the American colonies between 1760 and 1775. This chapter demonstrates that there were elements of nobility and tragedy on both sides of the American Revolution. It explains why British imperialists were so attached to parliamentary sovereignty, as the principal defender of their constitutional liberties, that they went to war to preserve it. The British valued parliamentary sovereignty because it preserved all of the interests considered indispensable to Britain's position as a great power: internal stability, economic prosperity, national security and imperial authority. By 1774-1775 the dispute over parliamentary sovereignty had proved intractable and it produced a gulf between Britain and the American colonies that neither side believed could be bridged with constitutional safety.
