Adam Smith on What If the British Had Kept America:

Reader Zev Sero points to Adam Smith’s take (in 1776) on what would happen if the British kept America (as he thought they should, and they could with the right policies):

Such has hitherto been the rapid progress of that country in wealth, population, and improvement, that in the course of little more than a century, perhaps, the produce of American might exceed that of British taxation. The seat of the empire would then naturally remove itself to that part of the empire which contributed most to the general defence and support of the whole.

As I mentioned earlier, I suspect the English would have resisted this for quite a while, but Adam Smith is Adam Smith and I’m not.