You just spent five paragraphs arguing that the American Revolution wasn’t about libertarian ideas, but about earning wealth and getting to keep it. You don’t get the connection?

As for American independence being due to the glories of its Libertarian forefathers, that’s crap too. Here is what actually happened.

Unlike the mother country, America was politically free, phenomenally rich, because of slave labor, free land, low population, and abundandant resources. It was self sufficient and had no ponderous parasitic land-holding aristocracy to support.

On the other hand, it depended on the Crown for protection against the Indians and the French and Spanish, and it was notoriously reluctant to help pay the bills for that protection. By the way, the French and Spanish both helped finance the Revolution, but it wasn’t because they gave a fig about Liberty either. They just wanted to stick it to the English.

The UK, on the other hand, constantly at war with the French and the Dutch, saw it as a place to go for money and naval stores, like timber and tar. Economic tensions were inevitable. About a third of the colonial population would benefit if the English left,
that is, the small businessmen and big planters you favor, about a third’s fortunes were with the Crown (most of them wound up moving to Canada, they have contributed little to the histories) and the rest didn’t care one way or the other.

The war was fought because the business class thought they could do better without the Brits (at least, the businessmen who weren’t getting rich selling to the Crown). It was a bourgeois revolution. Like most wars, It had little to do with Liberty, it was mostly about money.

What I would like to know is why the revolution did not spread to Canada. After all, they had a profitable fur trade there, and a bunch of Quebecker troublemakers PO’d at the Crown. And I’m sure they had plenty of capitalists.
What they didn’t have was any Libertarians.

The East India Company was a royally-chartered monopoly (sort of an “anti-anti-trust” deal) that basically ruled India at the time. Kicking them in the arse would be another resume-enhancer in my book.

There is no conflict between libertarian ideas and the desire to earn and keep profits. Each leads to the other. I understand that to a liberal, the desire to keep more of one’s own money is practically criminal, especially when there are so many better places liberals could spend it after they take it away from you. I don’t have that view of it.

Hancock wasn’t concerned with Libertarian principles. He was concerned with maximizing his profit, not helping his country. He didn’t lower his prices to beat the competition, he threw his competition’s merchandise into the harbor.

If the East India Company had cut him in the profits, I would have ended that last sentence with “into the harbour“.

John Hancock was a wealthy shipping magnate, who made the bulk of his money illegally by smuggling. Many colonials were smugglers, Hancock just happened to have a flair for it. Because the ever-tightening British policies that came about after the French and Indian War were aimed at his sort, he wholeheartedly took part in the call for Revolution.

Hancock smuggled glass, lead, paper, French molasses and tea. In 1768, upon arriving from England, his sloop Liberty was impounded by British customs officials for violation of revenue laws. This caused a riot among some infuriated Bostonians, depending as they did on the supplies on board. In the late 1760s, he was formally charge with smuggling and although certainly guilty, his attorney was able to get Hancock relieved of all charges. The lawyer was Sam’s cousin, John Adams.

It was a well known fact that John Hancock had made his fortune through smuggling Dutch tea, which was cheaper than East Indian tea. A commonly forgotten fact is that East Indian prices were cut before the introduction of the three pence tax, in effect making its price, even with the tax, cheaper than Hancock’s tea. Presented with this information, many loyalists did not wonder at Hancock’s involvement in the boycotting of East Indian tea and indeed, the entire war.

Patriots my ass. These guys were just capitalists trading tea, not peddling pizza. They would have fought for the other side if they had gotten a better deal from them. Proof enough for ya?

http://www.boston-tea-party.org/smuggling/John-Hancock.html