What If 'We' Had Not Fought the French and Indian War?

A Counterfactual Thought Experiment

For several weeks I have had a tab open on my browser: James Otis’s “Speech Against Writs of Assistance” (February 24, 1761). I finally just went to read it, but I only made it a paragraph into the introduction before a thought occurred to me.

“By 1760 the British seemed poised for victory in the French and Indian War. But as the expense of the war weigh…