Thomas Pownall - The Administration of The Colonies

The Administration of The Colonies

Although he held the governorship of South Carolina, he never actually went there. He characterised his term in Massachusetts as "arduous", and informed the colonial office in November 1760 that he would only accept another governorship if the recently crowned King George III directly ordered it. Pitt appointed him to the military commissary's office in the Electorate of Hanover, where he served until the Seven Years' War ended in 1763. The position did not further his career ambitions, however.

Upon his return to England he prepared for publication a treatise entitled The Administration of the Colonies. First published anonymously in 1764, Pownall revised the work and republished the work several times between 1765 and 1777. The work, a dry treatise on the situation in North America that included commentary on the burgeoning tensions in the Thirteen Colonies, was intended by Pownall to explore how the colonies could properly be incorporated into a larger empire.