In their novel The Two Georges (Tor Books 1996), Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss (yes, the actor) posit an alternate history: The American Revolution is averted by diplomacy. A colonial delegation, led by George Washington, traveled to London to negotiate settlements of the colonists’ grievances. In 1996, the North American Union, a dominion of a vast and still-intact British Empire, includes all of what are now Canada and the United States (except for Alaska, which is Russian territory, and Hawaii, which is a separate British protectorate). In some ways it is a better America than the one we’re living in. It’s less efficient and less industrialized, but also less polluted, less crime-ridden, and more pleasant and polite – kind of a Greater Canada – and the slaves were freed peacefully by Act of Parliament, and some of the Indian nations still have home rule in large territories. The national treasure is “The Two Georges,” a Gainesborough painting portraying the historic meeting of George Washington and King George III. At the start of the book a secessionist underground called the Sons of Liberty steals it, and Thomas Bushnell and Samuel Stanley of the North American Mounted Police (they wear uniforms similar to the Canadian Mounties) spend the rest of the book trying to track it down in time for the royal visit of King Charles III.
However: The “no taxation without representation” thing was never really resolved. The NAU is still ruled, ultimately, by a London Parliament in which Americans have no voice, and which allows America such autonomy as seems good to it at the time. Governor-General Martin Luther King, Jr., is concerned over the theft of “The Two Georges” mainly because after a cockup like that, “London won’t trust us to manage our own affairs” for years to come.
Suppose the Revolution had been averted – because the “no taxation without representation” issue never arose, because the colonies had always had representation in the Westminster Parliament? E.g., at a moment when Raleigh was in Elizabeth’s favor, he got her to grant Virginia its own M.P. (himself). And that set a precedent and was granted to all other colonies, shortly after their founding, as a matter of course.
How would things have gone after that? How would the direct involvement of American M.P.'s in British politics have affected the Civil War, the Commonwealth, the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution, and so on? Would Britain have allowed the colonies to spend decades in “benign neglect,” or would the engagement of Americans in its government also spurred the Crown to pay more attention to its overseas empire throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries?
How would the development of democratic government have been affected? For most of the 19th Century in Britain, only one man in seven had the vote, while the U.S. had already abolished all property qualifications and religious tests for voting and holding office. Would the continued political unity of Britain and America have altered that process in either country – slowed down democratization in America, speeded it up in Britain, or both?
What about slavery? In our time-line there was a massive abolitionist movement in Britain from the 1780s through the 1820s; it finally succeeded in getting Parliament to outlaw slavery throughout the Empire in 1833. But suppose Parliament had included member from slaveholding territories in the American South and the British West Indies? Could they have blocked or delayed abolition? If not, would they have rebelled and tried to secede from the Empire?
Would the British Empire have eventually become a de facto American Empire? If the American population overtook the British, and there was periodic reapportionment of Parliament, eventually the American M.P.s would outnumber the British.
How would involvement of the Americans have affected the development of the British Empire in the 19th Century? In our timeline, after the Revolution, the Americans concentrated on pushing west and killing Indians, while the Brits concentrated on finding new colonial territories in Africa and Asia – most of which were already heavily populated, so they did not become “settler states” like Australia, but subject colonies with a voiceless nonwhite population ruled by an elite of colonial adminstrators. Now, if America had remained part of the Empire:
(1) Britain’s attention might have been more preoccupied with America and their efforts in Africa and Asia might have been less vigorous. (Imagine if Rudyard Kipling had grown up in California!)
(2) Regarding such colonization as Britain did carry out in the Old World, the Americans, with their clout in the Commons, would demand full participation and a share of the spoils and jobs. (Imagine if Robert E. Lee had led the British forces to victory in the Sepoy Mutiny!)
(3) The established custom of parliamentary representation for colonies would have presented new questions when the colonies in question were mostly non-white and non-British in population. Would colonial India be represented in Parliament at all? If so, would any Indians have a vote, or only Anglo-Indians like (in our TL) Kipling? And how many members would India get? Would its representation be based on its vast total population or its negligible Brit population?
So what do you think? What would have happened?