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,"
United States Declaration of Independence colonies. The orthodox British view, dating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was that Parliament was the supreme authority throughout the empire, and so, by definition, anything that Parliament did was constitutional. In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, not even Parliament. After the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all. Anticipating the arrangement of the British Commonwealth, by 1774 American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that