Historiography of the British Empire especially the Royal Navy, was defence of the overseas empire (in addition of course to defence of the homeland). The army, usually in cooperation with local forces, suppressed internal revolts, losing only the American War of Independence (1775–83). Armitage says it became an element of the British creed that: Lizzie Collingham (2017) stresses the role of expanding the food supply in the building, financing and defending the trade aspect of empire building. The first British empire centered on the 13 American colonies, which attracted large numbers of settlers from across Britain. In the 1900s - 1930s period the "Imperial School,"
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence though the Mecklenburg Declaration was supposedly written more than a year before the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, the two declarations had some very similar phrases, including "dissolve the political bands which have connected", "absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown", "are, and of right ought to be", and "pledge to each other, our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor". This raised an obvious question: did Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the American Declaration of Independence, use the Mecklenburg Declaration as a source? One person who thought so was John Adams,