Greetings! This is a fairly common question in the realm of British imperial historiography, and it opens up a litany of new areas of exploration and side-investigation regarding the origins and expansion of the British Empire. u/TheBobJamesBob and I discuss this theory (or more specifically, Hannah Arendt's version of it in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism) here, but I shall adapt parts of my response from there and tack onto the whole notion of the British Empire being formed "accidentally", with parts from other responses I have done as well. Consider this then a "Frankenstein response" of sorts, and hopefully one which is a tad more comprehensive than my previous renditions on the question. Let's begin.

Note: For a full list of all the responses with parts featured and/or adapted into this one, see "Sources" down below, decent further reading as well on British imperial history (1800-1914) on the whole.

The "Imperial Project"

"The British Empire has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire; not a gold mine, but the project of a gold mine."

- Adam Smith writing in 1776

This sentiment towards the amalgamation of territories, "zones of influence", "spheres of domination", and a litany of other catch-all terms for the lands which (in one way or another) were impacted by Britain may have softened a century after Smith's writing, but it still rang fairly true. London had not set out in the late 17th century to conquer and coerce for itself the various polities, nation-states, or indigenous populaces which it eventually did, but it was often the arbiter (or to indulge some Latin, the ultima ratio) of what would become imperial rule. The government in London usually had little to no control over what the "men on the spot" did with the initial British bridgeheads, and this was both due to the long communication times (weeks if not months in the age of sail), so they left the initiative up to these men. Even the motives of the so-called "empire builders" differed vastly, whether that be Robert Clive in India (known as Clive of India), Cecil Rhodes in Africa, or the various companies which represented the British interests in the region. More often than not, economic reasons lay at the heart of expansion; though we must stress, not necessarily territorial expansion, but rather the expansion of influence and business.

So how did these "men on the spot" influence the decisions of an (often reluctant) government back in the British Isles to take control of a territory? Cases differ by colony, region, and timeframe, but there was a general pattern in the "settler colonies" as they would become known (namely Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, and to an extent South Africa). This pattern of "settlement, cession, and conquest" if you will often occurred without the complete (or even partial) control of London over the actions of the men on the ground. How could it? Government orders and dispatches from London could take weeks or (in the case of even more far-flung colonies), months to reach the intended recipients. By the time orders from the government back home reached the lands they needed to, the situation would have already developed further. For the most part in the early stages of British "empire-building" (if it can be called as such), the government in Whitehall had to trust that the men on the spot did indeed possess the necessary local knowledge and political acumen to advance "Britain's interests" (or prior to 1707, "England's interests) in the region.

Case in point: the 13 Colonies of North America. Prior to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the rise of the English Parliament as the main institution of government, the Royal Charters and Patents granted by the English Crown seemed rather unconcerned with how the founders of North American plantations (including those in the West Indies) went about governing their plots of land. Other than claiming the land for the Crown and paying a tax in trade goods back to the government in Britain, the colonial charters did not contain any substantial details on how these new settlements were to govern themselves. It did not take long however, for the "men-on-the-spot" to organise various form of government themselves. In 1619 for example, the first elections for a Virginia assembly took place (a mere 12 years after the first landing at Jamestown). There were however, general statements of authority that emanated from the British King. For example, the Virginia charter of 1606 reserved the King's right to establish the form of the colony's government and appoint a council in London with supervisory powers (although the Crown seemed rather... lax in enforcing this control, hence the occurrence of elections mentioned earlier). The Massachusetts Company, independent-minded as it was, also acknowledged this relation to the Crown and the obligation to shape its laws in any of its newfound territory to the current ones in England.

Part 1 of 3