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Actuaries work in a number of Insurance fields such as Life, Health, Pensions, Annuities, Asset Management, Property & Casualty (Auto, Home, Marine, etc), Enterprise Risk Management, and Investments.Actuaries use skills in mathematics, economics, finance, probability, statistics, and business to help businesses quantify the risk of certain events occurring, and to formulate policies that minimize the cost of that risk. For this reason, actuaries are essential to the insurance and reinsurance industry, either as staff employees or as consultants. Actuaries also work in conjunction with government agencies such as the Government Actuary’s Department in the UK or the Social Security Administration in the US. to estimate the cost of the occurrences such as death, sickness, injury, disability, or loss of property.Actuaries also address financial questions, including those involving the level of pension contributions required to produce a certain retirement income and the way in which a company should invest resources to maximize its return on investments. Using their broad knowledge, actuaries help design and price insurance policies, pension plans, and other financial strategies in a manner which will help ensure that the plans are maintained on a sound financial basis.Traditional employmentOn both the life and casualty sides, the classical function of actuaries is to calculate premiums and reserves for insurance policies covering various risks. Premiums are the amount of money the insurer needs to collect from the policyholder in order to cover the expected losses, expenses, and a provision for profit. Reserves are provisions for future liabilities and indicate how much money should be set aside now to reasonably provide for future payouts. If you inspect the balance sheet of an insurance company, you will find that the liability side consists mainly of reserves.On the casualty side, this analysis often involves quantifying the probability of a loss event, called the frequency, and the size of that loss event, called the severity. Further, the amount of time that occurs before the loss event is also important, as the insurer will not have to pay anything until after the event has occurred. On the life side, the analysis often involves quantifying how much a potential sum of money or a financial liability will be worth at different points in the future. Since neither of these kinds of analysis are purely deterministic processes, stochastic models are often used to determine frequency and severity distributions and the parameters of these distributions. Forecasting interest yields and currency movements also plays a role in determining future costs, especially on the life side.Actuaries do not always attempt to predict aggregate future events. Often, their work may relate to determining the cost of financial liabilities that have already occurred, called retrospective reinsurance, or the development or re-pricing of new products.Actuaries also design and maintain products and systems. They are involved in financial reporting of companies’ assets and liabilities. They must communicate complex concepts to clients who may not share their language or depth of knowledge. Actuaries work under a strict code of ethics that covers their communications and work products, but their clients may not adhere to those same standards when interpreting the data or using it within different kinds of businesses.Non-traditional employmentMany actuaries are general business managers or financial officers. They analyze prospective business prospects with their financial skills in valuing or discounting risky future cash flows, and many apply their pricing expertise from insurance to other lines of business. Some actuaries act as expert witnesses by applying their analysis in court trials to estimate the economic value of losses such as lost profits or lost wages.There has been a recent widening of the scope of the actuarial field to include investment advice and asset management. Further, there has been a convergence from the financial fields of risk management and quantitative analysis with actuarial science. Now, actuaries also work as risk managers, quantitative analysts, or investment specialists. Even actuaries in traditional roles are now studying and using the tools and data previously in the domain of finance. One of the latest developments in the industry, insurance securitization, requires both the actuarial and finance skills.Another field in which actuaries are becoming more prominent is that of Enterprise Risk Management, for both financial and non-financial corporations. For example, the Basel II accord for financial institutions, and its analogue, the Solvency II accord for insurance companies, requires such institutions to account for operational risk separately and in addition to credit, reserve, asset, and insolvency risk. Actuarial skills are well suited to this environment because of their training in analyzing various forms of risk, and judging the potential for upside gain, as well as downside loss associated with these forms of risk.RemunerationThe credentialing and examination procedure for becoming a fully qualified actuary can be discouraging. Consequently, the profession remains very small throughout the world. As a result, actuaries are in high demand, and they are highly paid for the services they render. In the UK, where there are approximately 8,000 fully qualified actuaries, typical post-university starting salaries range between GBP £25,300 and £35,000 (approx. US$50,100–US$69,300 c. January 2008) and newly qualified actuaries in insurance companies earn somewhere between £46,000 and £55,000 (approx. US$91,100–US$108,900 c. January 2008) per year. Many successful actuaries earn over £100,000 a year (approx. US$198,000 c. January 2008). These reflect nationwide salaries and numbers are likely to be higher in London or in the South East of England.Actuarial ExamsIn the U.S., for life, health, and pension actuaries, exams are given by the Society of Actuaries, while for property and casualty actuaries the exams are administered by the Casualty Actuarial Society. The Society of Actuaries’ requirements for Associateship include passing five preliminary examinations, demonstrating educational experience in economics, corporate finance and applied statistics—called validation by educational experience (VEE), completing an eight-module self-learning series, and taking a course on professionalism. For Fellowship, three other modules, two exams, and a special fellowship admission course is added. The Casualty Actuary Society requires the successful completion of seven examinations and VEE for Associateship and two additional exams for Fellowship. In addition to these requirements, casualty actuarial candidates must also complete professionalism education and be recommended for membership by existing members.In order to sign statements of actuarial opinion, however, American actuaries must be members of the American Academy of Actuaries. Academy membership requirements include membership in one of the recognized actuarial societies, at least three years of full-time equivalent experience in responsible actuarial work, and either residency in the United States for at least three years or a non-resident or new resident who meets certain requirements. Continuing education is required after certification for all actuaries who sign statements of actuarial opinion.In the pension area, American actuaries must pass three examinations to become an Enrolled Actuary. Some pension-related filings to the Internal Revenue Service and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation require the signature of an Enrolled Actuary. Many Enrolled Actuaries belong to the Conference of Consulting Actuaries or the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries.See AlsoSociety of ActuariesThe Society of Actuaries (SOA) is the largest professional, actuarial organization in the world. It is dedicated to serving its 19,000 members, and the public. The SOA's vision is for actuaries to be recognized as the leading professionals in the modeling and management of financial risk and contingent events. The SOA is committed to:Education–Providing basic education in the fundamental principles of actuarial science, advanced education, professional development and continuing education for practicing actuaries.Research–Conducting research to develop studies of historical experience and techniques for projections into the future, analyzing the actuarial aspects of public policy issues and providing the foundation for further expansion of the profession.The Profession–Promoting high standards of professional competence and conduct within the actuarial profession.Casualty Actuarial SocietyThe purposes of the Casualty Actuarial Society are to advance the body of knowledge of actuarial science applied to property, casualty and similar risk exposures, to establish and maintain standards of qualification for membership, to promote and maintain high standards of conduct and competence for the members, and to increase the awareness of actuarial science.The Casualty Actuarial Society is a professional organization whose purpose is the advancement of the body of knowledge of actuarial science applied to property, casualty, and similar risk exposures. This is accomplished through communicating with the public affected by insurance as well as presenting and discussing papers, attending seminars and workshops, conducting research, and maintaining a comprehensive library collection.Other important objectives for the Society areestablishing and maintaining high standards of conduct and competence for its membership through study and a course of rigorous examinations,developing industry standards and a code of professional conduct, andincreasing the awareness of actuarial science.BeAnActuary.orgThis Site provides an overview of the actuarial profession and is used to promote the actuarial science career. Exam information, academic programs, and job hunting tips are included. The web site is sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society, and Society of Actuaries.Actuarial Foundation The American Academy of Actuaries serves the public on behalf of the U.S. actuarial profession. Uniting actuaries from all practice areas, the Academy is the voice of the profession on public policy and professionalism issues.The purposes of the Academy's work are described in the mission, which was updated in 2007.The Academy was created in 1965 and is headquartered in Washington, DC.Actuarial Outpost Discussion Forum - http://www.actuarialoutpost.comThe Actuarial Outpost is the largest social networking site specifically created for actuaries. The Outpost itself has three basic subsections: jobs listings, actuarial news, and by far the most important, the discussion forums.The actuarial discussion forums are broken into five major sections, subsections, and various number of forums in each subsection. This partitioning allows for the ability to find a specific forum dealing with all areas of actuarial science, as well as having sections exclusive to specific actuarial exams.Actuarial Wiki - http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/wikiThe AO Actuarial Wiki was recently formed to help compile all of the user generated notes donated by the Actuarial Outpost's members. This wiki provides free notes for each actuarial exam.U.S. Dept of Labor - http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos041.htmGeneral Information on the Actuarial ProfessionActuarial Jokes - http://www.actuarialjokes.comA lighthearted take on the actuarial professionHow much do actuaries make? http://actuaryjobs.com/salary.htmlA regularly updated, comprehensive list of salaries for actuaries broken down into area of interest and experience.Wikipedia entry for 'actuary' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActuaryGeneral information on the actuarial profession.Full List of Actuarial Societies around the world - http://actuarialoutpost.com/wiki/index.php/Actuarial_Societies_List

Yesterday, in answer to differently-worded questions that basically ask for the same information as this question does, I posted a long and documented answer, to which here I simply refer, without re-posting it yet again.As I mentioned at the end of my answer a few days ago concerning “Sherlock Holmes’” (author Conan Doyle’s) 1892 statement wishing for a united country of the British Empire and the United States, whenever I come to a question on Quora that concerns the principles animating the Americans in the American Revolution, invariably I find that there are already two short answers that just insult the Americans.I have spent ten years using our marvelous internet, enriched as it is by the forward-thinking generosity of governments, universities, and nonprofits, to fill it with scans of the original pages of the original documents from the libraries of hundreds of college and universities, that make it possible for anyone, for free, to do better and faster and more accurate research than has ever before been available to even the most prestigious scholars.Prior to undertaking this effort, I was an associate and then partner at Arnold & Porter law firm in Washington D.C., maintaining a large pro bono docket, in addition to being immersed in huge “document” cases brought against the United States government by more than 100 banks and bank investors. I have ten years’ experience researching through thousands of documents, and from them, building arguments that had to stand-up to challenge not from PhD review committees, but by the elite lawyers of the U.S. Department of Justice, motivated to protect the U.S. Treasury from claims that in aggregate constituted $100 billion, claims that the audited financial statements of the U.S. government noted were the only litigations facing the U.S. that, if lost, represented a material adverse threat to the balance-sheet of the United States. I was, as usual, “second chair” to the lead counsel in each case, as the central coordinator of all the 65-some law firms for all the different plaintiffs.In December 1997, the trial judge in the case issued a decision on the “contract liability” phase of the case (calculation of damages would come later) agreeing with the positions I had documented through this research, and castigating the Justice Department for borderline frivolous resistance. I was in Paris, France at the time, visiting my parents with my wife and children, and we all saw the decision reported in the International Herald Tribune. This was affirmed on appeal in 2001. See California Federal Bank, et al., v. U.S., 39 Fed. Cl. 753 (1197), aff’d, 245 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2001).The position I took was that in the 1980s, to persuade new investors to come-in with their investment capital to rescue banks ruined in the 1980s by their cowboy managers, the government had made a binding contract deal with each of the banks and investor-groups (using a common form of contract with each bank or investor), and that in 1989 the government had enacted a federal statute that broke the contract deal, for which the government had to pay damages, providing that the banks could prove their individual losses (which turned out to be pretty hard to do; most banks got no award at the damages phase).The effect of the 1989 change in law was that in many cases, the government seized the money invested into the banks by the new investors based on the contract promises of freedom from government interference in the management of the banks, and threatened to seize the rest of the banks unless the new investors poured-in more of their own money into the banks - where that additional investment would be vulnerable to government seizure by any new change in the law.The government in the 1990s took the position that what the government had said in the 1980s was no contract deal; the government could ignore it and change the rules at-will. We resisted with documented arguments. We won.This, as it turns out, is the same kind of conflict that led to the American Revolution. The Americans said that they had received binding contract promises, in the form of charters, from all the kings and queens from James I through George II, promising elected representative law-making assemblies in each of the colonies, and that the Parliament of Great Britain, backed by King George III, was breaking the contracts, by asserting that no lawmaking by any of these elected assemblies was of any effect at all. The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a power to override everything done by all the elected assemblies, and even asserted a power to order the elected assemblies what laws they must enact, even if the people of the colonies did not want those to be their laws.The ministers of George III denied that any of the kings before George III had had the power to bind the government in contract in the future. They said that the Parliament of Great Britain was the “supreme legislature” and had all lawmaking power in America, despite all the elected representative law-making assemblies in all the colonies, promised the lawmaking powers, by the earlier kings and queens, in the charters.We will see this very clearly in the words of the Colony Minister, Lord Hillsborough, in February 1768, in a discussion with a future U.S. Senator in the First Congress, who then was an agent for the colony of Connecticut, visiting in London.This ties-in directly with my pro bono legal work. One of my pro bono matters was aiding The National Endowment for Democracy. The purpose of the NED is to promote democratic self-government in countries that do not have it. For some seven years I was “second chair” to partner Ken Juster of A&P, a former State Dept. appointee, who is now the U.S. Ambassador to India. The NED board is comprised of sitting U.S. Senators and Representatives, former Executive Branch policy appointees, and experts in democracy.One of the experts who sat on that board while I was there was Francis Fukuyama, author of a famous book that indicated that the administrative welfare state of the European model was the culmination of centuries of arguments concerning what is the best form of government.After I left the practice of law and began to do the research, I discovered what appears to me to be a fundamental problem with the Fukuyama position: it fails to take into account the irresistible element inside each person to be free to make his or her own decisions about the laws and the shape of government, and to be free to make decisions about how the individual will live his or her own life. There is an element in the conception of the administrative welfare state that seems to see the people as a kind of animal-herd that has to be managed, and whose highest goal is bodily health (medical care) and satisfaction of bodily needs and desires. If these can be but managed and provided reliably, government has done what it must do. Encouragement of the free, individual, inventive mind is an after-thought in this; it is treated as a detail whose effects have to be managed.This I found quite offensive, particularly as my prior-to-law career was being a producer of experimental, avant-garde live performance based in San Francisco in the 1980s, for ten years. Here were the quintessential inventive individual minds - and I was dedicated to seeing that their visions achieved reality. I had success here, too; we toured the U.S. and Europe to prestigious festivals, culminating in an invitation from the U.S. State Department - with it paying our expenses - to represent United States creativity and innovation behind the Iron Curtain in 1987, just as the movements that would bring that curtain down were growing. My last production in June 1988 played the Kennedy Center Opera House - but by that point I attended the show I had produced merely as a spectator, because I would be entering Georgetown University Law Center just a few months later. I had decided to move-on from theater to law, after seeing the unhappiness of the young and inventive persons who lived behind the Iron Curtain, at the festivals we had performed in. It was the oppressive, all-controlling nature of the governments that they lived under that was crushing their spirits and rendering them hopeless and depressed. I saw it and heard it from them, personally.Lately, Fukuyama’s position has been challenged by those who say the more controlling Chinese model is the true best form of government. But I think the flaw in Fukuyama’s vision comes from the opposite side: a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. We are not just bodies, but minds; and the Fukuyama vision fails to accommodate the power of this.That is certainly what occurred to cause the American Revolution - as I have found repeatedly and without contradiction in all the original source documents.But this is an understanding of the American Revolution that discredits the increase of power in governments; and thus encounters a reluctance to report it or to teach it, because such a high percentage of our teachers, from the kindergarten level all the way up through the top-levels of post-graduate education, rely on government for their career-long income, and for the security of their pensions to the end of their lives. This is an unexpected consequence of the argument that all people have a “right” to education that must be delivered by the government.Of course it is best if everyone is well-educated.But the consequence is that almost all teachers, at all levels, are either directly paid by government, or rely on government subsidies - state-guaranteed tuitions, and government research grants. None of these people will be inclined to see merit in teaching that in the past, some very intelligent, very well-informed and well-educated people - indeed, almost all of the intelligent, well-educated Americans - rejected the increase in power of government. To teach this today would tend to lead to a weakening of the power of government today, and thus, to increase the risk that governments will not be able to deliver the cash promised to them in today’s paychecks and tomorrows pensions. When government is so much in debt as ours in, everyone who depends on government for their life-sustaining income is rightfully very nervous that the government might suddenly fail to meet its financial promises. In a time of threatening debt, ensuring that the government has ever-more money-collecting power is vital to everyone who lives on the government.Until the development of the internet, it has been impossible for anyone except those dependent on government income (directly paid or by guarantees of payments by others) to see the original documents. But now it is possible for persons outside the financial incentives of the system to see these materials.It then remains for someone competent in research to take the vast amount of time necessary to search out all the relevant material, and for someone competent in analytical writing to present the results of that research, with a competence that withstands the most challenging inquiry. Such a person I propose myself to be, having in the past withstood the challenge of elite Department of Justice lawyers, as confirmed by both a federal U.S. trial judge in 1997, and of the appellate U.S. judges in 2001.My works are very lengthy, because I include all the research to back-up what I say, and I note repeatedly that anyone can check my work. The results of my first five years of research, 2009 to 2014, are on amazon kindle in a massive unedited data-dump, basically, which no one else appears to find useful, but which I already know, and use to locate relevant material for questions such as this.In 2016–2017 I decided to focus on the reasons for the American Revolution, specifically by looking at those who later became officials in the federal government, and on what they did in relation to firearms in the period before the Declaration of Independence. This has been on SSRN since September 2017. Subsequently I have found and corrected many typographical errors, in an updated pdf that anyone may request from me.Now: as regards this specific answer, I will not re-post everything that I just posted twice on Quora yesterday. In summary, I established that beginning with Queen Elizabeth I, the Crown of England, and later the combined Crown of England and Scotland, established a policy unique among European monarchs, of making contract deals of the Crown with its own subjects. A key step in the process had been in 1215 with the Magna Charta, and then with the establishment of the House of Commons, which permitted those subjects who had money in the kingdom to intercept all Crown demands for money, treat them as mere requests, insist on explanations for the use of the money, and, if freely judging the uses to be good, and if freely judging that the money would be well-managed and thus applied to the stated purpose, they would “give and grant” their money.When James I succeeded Elizabeth, he inherited and adopted this long-established practice, that the Crown could make binding contracts with the subjects. Technology of ocean-sailing and economic developments coincidentally had progressed to the point that establishing colonies of English settlers in North America was not only feasible, but desirable.But, there not having been any traces of gold or silver discovered in North America, the British king had no incentive to send soldiers over to seize the gold; and thus, no incentive to send soldiers over at all. The gold and silver that motivated the King of Spain to send military missions into South America answerable to him did not exist in Britain regarding North America.And thus, beginning with King James I, the practice in Britain developed, that groups of subjects would conceive a colonization plan, either for economics or to serve as a religious refuge for dissenters, and they would come to him to seek a charter - which, by its own written terms, was a binding contract enforceable against future kings and queens.The settlers proposed to put their bodies and lives on the line in a wilderness, to develop it; but they insisted on having their own self-government, sot hat if they generated wealth through their efforts, they would have the power to protect it, more than the power that they would have in England or in Scotland. They were not going to leave civilization, risk death on the seas or in the wilderness of North America, then, having survived that, labor to build a wealthy land, only to have it all then taken-away by the government in London. They would not go unless they had a binding promise of self-government that would provide protection.And beginning with King James I, consistently through King George II, that is just what the kings promised.The settlers, in reliance on those contract promises, went out, and were successful. Or more substantially, their descendants were successful. The colonists were always thinking about their descendants; their documents are filled with their concern for “out posterity,” which was their term for their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. The king’s promises were perpetual, so as to protect “our posterity.”What developed was what the British Commonwealth is today: a collection of states, each independent of all others, but united by having one King or Queen. No one elected assembly or parliament, no one set of ministers, had any role in advising the king on what laws to make in any other state.The only exception to this was ocean-trade, which was managed from London; but the writ of power arising from this extended only to the landward-side door of the customs-house in each port, and along the coasts only as needed to ensure “no smuggling,” so that every product that was supposed to go through a customs-house did indeed go through customs-house.In 1760, with the death of King George II, his grandson ascended the throne as King George III. He was young and inexperienced, only 22 years old. Sensitive to the fact that his grandfather and great-grandfather had been German in birth and culture, he volunteered in his accession speech (otherwise drafted by ministers) “Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain.”In his first act of law, he designated virtually all of his independent income to Parliament, in exchange for an annual “civil list” payment from Parliament - and thus the king put himself solely financially under the control of the Parliament of Great Britain, apart from any connection he had to any other elected legislature in any colony. That property today is managed by an entity called, since 1955, “The Crown Estate,” and its website, on it history page, accessed today, says“Since 1760, the net income of The Crown Estate has been surrendered to the Exchequer by the Monarch under successive Civil List Acts, passed at the beginning of each reign.”In 1761, there was a national election for the House of Commons, which wikipedia today calls “one of the most undemocratic in British history.” There would not be another national election until May 1768.In 1760, the Parliament of Great Britain had taken-over control of the king, a naive young man seeking emotional acceptance from Britain, by means of monopolizing the king’s money; and then a year later a group of rich insiders took-over control of the Parliament of Great Britain. Thus these rich and greed-driven insiders now had control of the king.That is the reality of the situation.In 1763, with Britain’s spectacular victory over France and Spain simultaneously in the Seven Years War, North America was freed of French and Spanish troops and claims of power.In 1764, the ministers and the Parliament of Great Britain - without any legal-analysis forethought so far as I have found - announced that in 1765 it would enact a law disqualifying all the American colonial governments from issuing court decisions, enacting statutory laws, registering land-title changes, etc., unless these government actions were written on paper imported from Britain. The price of this paper would include a sales-tax, payable to the government in London, and symbolized by a stamp printed or impressed upon the paper.The basic concept was to turn the internal lawmaking of each colony into a matter of the ocean-trade - because everything internal to government in the colonies now would have to be done on an import product - the paper - and thus, within the power of London to rule.Each colony would have a government-appointed agent, known as the stamp-agent, who would manage the import and distribution of this paper.Colonial leaders in London, such as Benjamin Franklin, and such as a brother of Virginian Richard Henry Lee, official representatives of the colonies as registered agents, spoke against this law on policy grounds, but they lost, and in 1765 the Parliament of Great Britain enacted, and King George III assented, and this became law.Benjamin Franklin and Richard Henry Lee, and others, who had opposed the law on policy but had lost, then began to strategize how they or their friends could get the lucrative and powerful posts as the colonial stamp-agents.But to their surprise, a massive, continent-wide explosion of opposition to this Stamp Act occurred all over America.Because if this could be done with paper, it could be done with any tangible object. Imagine, for example, clothing. Parliament could announce that no judge could issue a decision, unless wearing clothing imported from Britain; no lawyer could argue a case, unless wearing clothing imported from Britain; no witness could take the stand and testify, unless wearing clothing imported from Britain; no legislator in any assembly could have his vote on a bill counted, or have his words in debate recorded, unless he was wearing clothing imported from Britain at the moment he voted or spoke; and even, that no one could register a complaint of crime of robbery or battery, unless, when the person suffered this bodily attack, the person had been wearing clothing imported from Britain - such that it was British-made cloth that the criminal’s knife or bullet penetrated, before penetrating the flesh of the victim.This is what one answer to this question refers to merely as better-management of the colonies, colonies that, according to that answer, heretofore had experienced the “benign neglect” of Parliament.In 1766 Parliament resentfully backed-down, but in so doing, enacted a sweeping assertion of power to all lawmaking in North America, known as the Declaratory Act.New ministers came in, whose attitude was that no colonial government was anything to be regarded in any way. In response to the American resistance, they then developed a legal theory, a conception of what government was, that said in any government, there had to be one supreme source of power, able to override all other supposed sources of power.One of those ministers, who came into the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies in January 1768, was born Wills Hill, son of the first Viscount Hillsborough, an Irish peerage. Unlike English or Scottish peers, Irish peers could sit in the House of Commons. In 1742, his father’s death made him second Viscount Hillsborough, but he kept his seat in the Commons (elected in 1741) until in 1756 he was made a Baron in the English peerage (Baron of Harwich) which moved him into the House of Lords. Later, in 1772, after his service as Colony Secretary, he would be rewarded for his conduct of that office - rewarded for the treatment that we are about to see that he gave the colonies - by being made Earl of Hillsborough in the English peerage. In 1789 he would be made Marquess of Downshire in the Irish peerage. Marquess being the highest title he earned (the next highest is Duke), this is how he is labeled on wikipedia today.In the documents of the time, he is always referred to as Lord Hillsborough (sometimes with one “l”).Wills Hill’s very first act on becoming Colony Secretary was to assert that there was then, and had always been from the beginning of time, a power in the government in London to veto every law made by any American colony, regardless of the language any king or queen had ever signed in any charter, an inherent power of government which had - until he obtained government power as Colony Secretary - been left unasserted due to what a prior answer here calls “benign neglect.”One of America’s best-educated and most respected lawyers, William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, happened to be in London on Connecticut business (a long-running lawsuit over borders and Indian claims) and he had become Connecticut’s official representative in London on general matters.Johnson - later to become a U.S. Senator in the 1st U.S. federal Congress - promptly called on Lord Hillsborough to make the case that Hillsborough’s assertion of veto power violated the Connecticut Charter, and thus, that Hillsborough’s demand was unenforceable.Here is what Lord Hillsborough wrote, and then Johnson’s report to the Connecticut Governor of his meeting with Hillsborough, as reported in my September 2017 SSRN paper:>On 23 January 1768, in London, the new Colony Minister, Lord Hillsborough, addressed a circular letter to each of the governors of the American colonies (the copy I review is to John Penn of Pennsylvania, in the Pennsylvania Archives, but I presume the same letter went to each governor):“His Majesty having been graciously pleased to appoint me to be one of his principal Secretaries of State, and to commit to my care the dispatch of all such business relative to his Majesty’s colonies in America … your dispatches be for the future addressed to me. …“[A]ll possible facility & dispatch should be given to the business of his colonies, and as nothing can more effectually contribute to this salutary purpose than a frequent and full communication of all occurrences that may happen, and a regular and punctual transmission of all acts and proceedings of government, and legislature, and of such papers as have any relation thereto;“I have it in command from his Majesty to recommend this to your particular attention, his Majesty having observed with concern, that this essential part of the duty of his officers in America has scarcely any where been duly attended to, and in several colonies, particularly the Charter and Proprietary governments, almost entirely neglected.”>On 13 February 1768, in London, future 1stUS Congress Senator William Samuel Johnson wrote Connecticut Governor William Pitkin III in Connecticut at Hartford, to report in detail on his recent meeting with the new Colony Minister, Lord Hillsborough (Wills Hill). Governor Pitkin received this on April 18, 1768:“As soon as Lord Hilsborough publicly entered upon his office of Secretary of State for the American department [officially appointed February 27], I thought it my duty to wait upon his lordship and congratulate him upon his appointment to that important office, and to recommend the Colony of Connecticut to his lordship’s favor and protection. …“[H]e said, we were a very free Colony … we were very deficient in our correspondence, seldom writing to his Majesty’s Ministers … they were often quite in the dark about us, and seemed to have too little connection with that Colony.“I assured him, in answer, that I believed he might depend upon it that everything was communicated which the government there could imagine it fit to trouble the King’s Ministers with … from the nature of our constitution, his lordship would see that fewer occasions would occur of troubling the King’s Ministers with our affairs than in those governments immediately under the Crown, which must necessarily be, in some sort, actually administered by the Ministers themselves; and if in any cases real delays had happened [various excuses justified the delays].“He seemed pretty well satisfied with this apology, but then proceeded to a much more interesting subject. He had, he said, in his circular letter, requested that a copy or our colony laws should be sent him …. I told him, I believed the colony had several times sent over the printed law book; that I thought there was one or more at the Plantation Office, and imagined they might even be had in England.“He replied, however that might be, as his was a new office, it would be necessary that a copy should be lodged there; and he thought it the duty of government to send it, and transmit from time to time, not only the laws that should pass, but all the minutes of the proceedings of Council and Assembly, that they might know what we were about, how government was administered, and rectify whatever might be amiss.“I said, if his Lordship wanted a copy of our laws for his private perusal, or to remain in his office for the information of his secretary and clerks, or to be referee to whenever any affairs of the colony were under consideration, I did not doubt the colony would send him one of their law books … but if his Lordship meant to have the laws now in force there, and those which should hereafter pass, transmitted (as from the colonies immediately under the Crown) for the inspection of the Ministry as such, and for the purpose of approbation or disapprobation by his Majesty in Council, (which I saw very plainly was what he was driving at,) it was what the colony had never done, nor thought themselves obliged to do, and I was persuaded would never submit to; and if his Lordship would be pleased to attend to the charter granted us by King Charles II., I did not doubt he would be clearly of the opinion, that the colony were thereby vested with a complete power of legislation, and that their acts needed no farther approbation, nor were subject to any revision; and in point of fact, his Lordship well knew that those laws had never been re-examined here, that the colony had been for more than a century in the full exercise of these powers, under the eye and with the approbation of government here, without any the least check or interruption, except in a single instance [referring to actions by an agent, Edmund Andros, of about-to-be-deposed King James II, in 1687], in such times, and under such circumstances, as I believed his Lordship would not mention but with detestation, much less consider as a precedent.“He said, he had read our charter with some attention, and he knew what powers we had exercised under it; that it was very full and expressive, but there were such things as extravagant grants, which were therefore void; and however great a latitude of expression was made use of in it, still there might be a doubt, perhaps, what would really pass by it in legal construction; that he believed I would admit there were many things which the King could not grant, as the inseparable incidents of the Crown, &c.; and it might deserve consideration whether some things which King Charles had pretended to grant to the Colony of Connecticut were not of that nature, particularly the power of absolute legislation, which tended to the absurdity of introducing imperium in imperio, and to create an independent state.“I replied, that, for the purpose of his argument, I apprehended it was not necessary either to admit or deny that there were some prerogatives of the Crown so inseparably incident or annexed to it that they could not be granted away, (upon which subject some lawyers had, however, refined so much as to render themselves very unintelligible,) since nobody had ever reckoned the power of legislation among those inseparable incidents of the Crown; all lawyers were agreed, that it was a peculiar and undisputed prerogative of the Crown to create corporations, and that the power of law-making was incident to every corporation, at least in some degree … founded in the reason of things … that every corporation in England enjoyed it as really, though not so extensively, as the Colony of Connecticut, they to their particular purposes for which they were created, we to ours ….“That the colony charters were in several respects of a higher nature, and founded upon a better title than even those of the corporations of England, particularly that those here were mere acts of grace and favor, whereas those in America were granted in consideration of very valuable services done, or to be performed, which having been abundantly executed, at immense expense by the grantees, by the peopling and cultivation of a fine country, to the vast extension of his Majesty’s dominions, and the prodigious increase of the trade and revenues of the Empire, they must now be considered as grants upon valuable consideration, sacred and most inviolable. …“Parliament, as well as the Crown, having for more than a century acquiesced in the exercise of the powers claimed by it [the Connecticut government], this would amount to an approbation, so that the colony had now a Parliamentary sanction, as well as a title by prescription, added to the royal grant; by all which they must be effectually secured in the full possession and exercise of all their charter rights.“His Lordship endeavored to distinguish between the ordinary corporation powers (in which he would admit the power of making by-laws was included) and that legislative power exercised in the charter colonies, upon which he was pretty full; and I still endeavored to avail myself of those distinctions in favor of my argument, upon this principle, that the very creating of a corporation for the purpose of establishing a colony included in its idea the full power of legislation, the government of a colony being a more extensive and complicated object than that of a single city or town, and necessarily requiring more full and absolute powers, which it must therefore be injudicious to limit by comparing them strictly with those of corporations for inferior purposes.“Finally, upon this point, his Lordship said, these were matters of nice and curious disquisition, and required a longer time for full discussion than he could then well spare; he seemed, however, to yield the necessity of any royal approbation as requisite to the validity of our laws, but still insisted that (admitting the validity of King Charles’s grant) they ought to be regularly transmitted for the inspection of the Privy Council, and for disapprobation, if found within the saving of the charter, ‘repugnant to the laws of England;’ that those who claimed under the charter must admit the force of that limitation of their legislative powers, at least, and that alone would render it necessary that their laws should be transmitted and inspected here.“Upon which I begged leave to observe to his Lordship, that the colony did not apprehend that any extrajudicial opinion of his Majesty’s Ministers, or even of the King’s Privy Council, could determine whether any particular act was within that proviso or not; that this could only be decided by a court of law, having jurisdiction of the matter about which the law in question was conversant; that though perhaps we should not contend, but that, if the General Assembly [of Connecticut] should make a law repugnant to a statute of Great Britain, (not in the sense of diverse form [from], but flatly, and in terms contradictory to it,) such law, by the saving in the charter, might be void, yet a declaration of the King in Council would still make it neither more nor less so, but be as void as the law itself; because its being void or not depended merely upon the restraining clause in the charter, not upon any authority reserved to the Crown, or the Privy Council, to decide about it, from which they were by other words in the same charter clearly and expressly excluded; that therefore the only method which could be taken in such case must be for the persons aggrieved by such act to bring their action at law, in such manner as to bring in question the validity of such act of Assembly, when the court before whom the trial should be, could fairly and legally determine upon it; that this might be done in the courts of law in the colony, and I doubted not would be very fairly decided there, and leave no room for an application here, or, if the contrary should ever happen, the interposition here (if any) I conceived must be in the judicial only, not by any means in the official way.“As against the Crown, especially, the charter grant was completely, and to all intents and purposes, conclusive; King Charles II. had, for himself and his successors, absolutely granted all their power, by which the Crown must be bound, and forever estopped to say that there was any ground for the Privy Council, or any of the King’s Ministers, who were still but the delegates of the Crown, and acting in behalf of it, and by authority derived only from thence, to interpose in confirming or disannulling the laws of that colony, and consequently there could be no manner of [or] occasion for transmitting our acts to his Majesty’s Ministers, or for their giving themselves any trouble about them.“The judicial power of the Privy Council … his Lordship did not mention, nor indeed, as he had stated it, did it properly belong to the argument ….“As to the minutes of Council and Assembly … I told his Lordship that there were none kept, but only in short notes … perfectly unintelligible unless the colony sent their Secretary, after every session, to explain them ….“His Lordship said that we had a very particular method of doing business; that he had not seen these things quite in the light which I had endeavored to place them in, and he feared we were in danger of being too much a separate independent state, and of having too little connection with or subordination to this country, upon which our security and well-being depended; that, however, these things merited a farther consideration; he hoped, at least, the colony would send him their laws, and we might perhaps talk farther upon these subjects, upon some future occasion ….“[I] left him not well to find that he had entertained such ideas, and was in danger of such opinions, as you see, from the tenor of his conversation … [ideas which had] been revolving in his mind ever since he was at the Board of Trade… as this nobleman is now at the head of all American affairs… I imagined it might be of some use to acquaint you … to see what loose, mistaken notions those who are esteemed very great men (and really are so in many respects) are capable of entertaining of colony rights ….”When Lord Hillsborough asserted that the promises of King Charles the Second in the Connecticut charter were “extravagant grants, which were therefore void,” he effectively said that the promises in the charter were lies, and that Parliament and the ministers and the king could act as if those promises never existed, despite the truth of what Johnson asserted, that the promises “were granted in consideration of very valuable services done, or to be performed, which having been abundantly executed, at immense expense by the grantees, by the peopling and cultivation of a fine country, to the vast extension of his Majesty’s dominions, and the prodigious increase of the trade and revenues of the Empire.”It is true that Lord Hillsborough concluded this discussion by saying that “these things merited a farther consideration,” which might mean that he had not finally concluded that the charter promises were “extravagant grants, which were therefore void.” However, as we will see, and as Johnson wrote, there never was a “farther consideration” – Lord Hillsborough always spoke and acted as a man who had unshakably decided that the charter promises were “extravagant grants, which were therefore void.”There had never been a duty to send “a regular and punctual transmission of all acts and proceedings of government” from each colony for review by ministers chosen by the Parliament of yet another of the governments all under the same king. In the colonies in which the governor was appointed by the king (chosen by the ministers), the king might direct his governor to do this, but that would be a personal obligation of the individual, not of the colony itself as a legal entity. In the proprietary and charter governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island, there was no such individual in existence (the governors there not being appointed by the king) and thus no such duty attached even to specific individuals.Colony Minister Lord Hillsborough thus asserted a duty applicable to colonies as legal entities that did not exist and had never existed. On this false foundation, he then made a complaint that the supposed pre-existing duty “has scarcely any where been duly attended to, and in several colonies, particularly the Charter and Proprietary governments, almost entirely neglected.” Hillsborough thus made a basis of complaint about bad conduct by colony leaders that was a false complaint, because there had never been any such duty, and thus there was no neglect of duty.Making a complaint of bad performance of duties in the past is the usual path by which someone who wants to fire the current officials, and replace them with his own favorites, seeks to build the case for firing. And that is what Colony Minister Hillsborough was doing here.Concoct a new duty; assert that the duty had always existed; criticism the current office-holders for having failed to perform their duty in the past; and castigate and denounce them if they fail to begin now to perform that duty in the present or into the future; and then fire them. This is a standard manipulation technique, in which the subject of discussion is always the targeted person, and never the person who is trying to control and dominate that person.More fundamentally, when Colony Minister Lord Hillsborough spoke of the colonies as “his Majesty’s colonies,” he meant something far more significant than merely the polite formulations of words that are used when a democracy operates within the forms of royal government. When people referred to the Parliament of Great Britain as “his Majesty’s Parliament,” they did not mean thereby that the king owned Parliament and that he had a right to give unlimited orders to Parliament or to its individual members. The king could not command the individuals in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords how to vote on particular bills, or what to say about particular matters of public concern.Not so with the American colonies. When Colony Minister Lord Hillsborough used the words “his Majesty’s colonies,” he meant ownership and control – the right to give orders to the colonies as governments, and to the individuals within each colony government, and to all the individuals living within the colonies.The ministers in London would never have dared to speak and act in this fashion so long as the French and the Spanish had large armed forces on the continent of North America – and in fact they did not, except briefly during the reign of King James the Second, who by applying the same attitude within Britain itself, got himself overthrown and exiled. So long as France and Spain held large portions of North America, the leaders in London needed the active aid and support of the Americans, and thus, treated the Americans with respect.It was only after the expulsion of the French and the Spanish from Canada and from Florida in 1763 that the leaders in London began to feel that they could now command and order the Americans.In essence, what Lord Hillsborough asserted over America was the kind of power that William the Conqueror had asserted over England in 1066.The entire British history over 700 years, of limitations upon the sovereign, of rights of the subjects enforceable against the sovereign, and of the sovereign as a deal-maker with subjects, who honored the deals - all this, the London ministers and the Parliament of Great Britain threw-away in 1764, just as stated by Lord Hillsborough in January and February 1768, as quoted above.The American descendants of the original British colonists would have no more claim to that 700 years of British constitutional history than would the Natives of India, or the Natives of Africa.To stop this is the “main reason for the American Revolution” that this question asks for.