# Quote — Niall Ferguson, Empire

> In all, around 100,000 Loyalists left the new United States bound for Canada, England or the West Indies. It has sometimes been argued that in gaining Canada in the Seven Years War, Britain had undermined her position in America. Without the French threat, why should the thirteen colonies stay loyal? Yet the loss of America had the unforeseen effect of securing Canada for the Empire, thanks to the flood of English-speaking Loyalists immigrants who would eventually reduce the French Quebecois to a beleaguered minority. The amazing thing is that so many people should have voted with their feet against American independence, choosing loyalty to King and Empire over ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

- Author: [Niall Ferguson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson.md)
- Book: [Empire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire.md)
- Page: 101
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson#Empire:_How_Britain_Made_the_Modern_World_(2003)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/in-all-around

## More from this book

> Finally, although Anglophone economic and political liberalism remains the most alluring of the world’s cultures, it continues to face, as it has since the Iranian revolution, a serious threat from Islamic fundamentalism.

p. 364 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/finally-although-anglophone.md)

> The familiar rationale of white rule in Africa was that it conferred the benefits of civilization. The war made a mockery of that claim.

p. 301 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/the-familiar-rationale.md)

> In 1940, under Churchill’s inspired, indomitable, incomparable leadership, the Empire had stood alone against the truly evil imperialism of Hitler. Even if it did not last for the thousand years that Churchill hopefully suggested it might, this was indeed the British Empire’s 'finest hour'.
>
> Yet what made it so fine, so authentically noble, was that the Empire’s victory could only ever have been Pyrrhic. In the end, the British sacrificed her Empire to stop the Germans, Japanese and Italians from keeping theirs. Did not that sacrifice alone expunge all the Empire’s other sins?

p. 355 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/niall-ferguson/empire/in-1940-under.md)