However, the native British were contemptuous of the colonists, considered them rubes. Nevermind that the American colonies had established the highest standard of living in the world. They were considered the "'necks" of the British Empire. This lack of respect for American colonists was apparent in their inability to understand the feelings of the Colonists, who had lived pretty much independently of the British government the previous 160 years.
Another thing that nobody considers: The spiritual and moral decay of the Great Britain during the mid-1700's. While the Colonies was a haven of religious freedom and devotion, there was intense injustice, inequality, and corruption among the Nobles and commoners in England. It wasn't uncommon for the nobility to have party invitations that asked men to share their "food and wives". The colonists had contempt for British nobility, who to them were a bunch of inbred retards who only attained their status by accident of birth. Mind you, the 1770's was around the beginning of the Wesleyan Revival, and the great Christian Empire of Great Britain (that destroyed slave camps in Africa and sent missionaries around the world) was still far in the future.
What America faced during the Revolution was a spent nation, morally decadent, on the cusp of the same sort of Revolution that overtook the French in the 1790's. The big surprise was that it took so long for the Colonists to win their independence.
What America faced during the Revolution was a spent nation, morally decadent, on the cusp of the same sort of Revolution that overtook the French in the 1790’s.
Before I looked it up, I thought the difference in population was much greater. I hadn't expected that a quarter of Parliament would have to be from this side of the pond.