I think this is something you and I could agree on. I’d like your opinion, moreso on Johnson’s original work.
Ping...........
I am perplexed by Johnson’s statement, “This contest may end in the softer phrase of English superiority and American obedience.”
The Americans considered themselves Englishmen. The American colonies were unlike any other in existence at the time as they were founded and populated with settlers from the Mother country. Whole villages, towns and cities were as English as any in England.
The Puritans who fled England for Boston were vindicated in part by Cromwell’s victory. Many actually returned. However, others stayed to continue their new lives in the prosperity of the New World as Englishmen. Cromwell’s victory did more, of course, then end persecution of the Puritan beliefs. It created that great pillar in English government that states Parliament is supreme, even over the Monarch.
When England, Scotland and then Ireland merged to form first Great Britain and then the United Kingdom, all got ridings (representation) in Parliament.
Had Parliament given the solidly English parts of America ridings, they would have been no independence movement.
Truly one of the biggest mistakes in history.
I think that this excerpt you have provided shows his comments to have merit. When he says "The Americans, when the stamp act was first proposed, undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation dislikes an impost; but they had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by European intelligence, from men whom they thought their friends, but who were friends only to themselves. "
I think he is referring to people like John Locke, Samuel Rutherford, and Emmerich Vattel. These men would have been considered European intellectuals of their era, and their ideas were indeed embraced by many of the agitators for independence here in America.
It was Vattel who explicitly stated that the Colonies could form a confederation of states and rule themselves, so I think Samuel Johnson had this part absolutely right.
As for the part about Americans wanting independence while practicing slavery, it seems like an offhand comment intended to provoke mirth by demonstrating their hypocrisy rather than something he spent a great deal of time exploring.
He appears to be a loyal Englishman who was promoting what he felt was in the best interests of both England and America but with no question as to who should be ruling whom.