The British Colonies in America
After the signing of the Treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years War in 1763, the British Empire in America consisted of a group of colonies that ran from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the southernmost tip of the West Indies. Each was administered by a governor and an elected assembly whose members swore allegiance to the British crown. The bonds between the colonies ended there. Before thirteen provinces seceded in 1776, different religious, economic, and social characteristics made its peoples look on each other more frequently as "foreigners" than as compatriots in a common cause.
