Mistakes were made

         Harsh punishments make them pull away even more.  After the Boston Tea Party, you responded by putting in place the Coercive Acts, shutting down Boston harbor, taking complete control of Massachusetts’s government, taking away their right to try British soldiers for crimes committed in Boston, and requiring them to provide housing for British troops.  These Acts caused the American colonists to feel their rights were being taken away.  Instead of these Acts, you could have punished the colonists by greatly raising taxes until the cost of the damage is paid off (plus extra for the inconvenience) then return them to equal or slightly higher than they were originally.

         Sudden, drastic, forced, changes in their government are a bad idea.  If they are used to governing themselves, don’t just suddenly take all of that away from them.  If you want tighter control, do it more gradually.  After the French and Indian war, you took much tighter control of the American colonies and started controlling aspects of government that had previously been controlled by American politicians.  Change scares people and a scared populace will place the blame on you, their leadership.

         Do not take away their rights!  Taking away their rights is the worst thing you can possibly do in the eyes of the people.  They will be forever against you if they begin to suspect it.  You made the Americans suspect it when you suddenly took away their right to representative government and made it possible to have trials without a jury.  Then they decided that every act passed after that was either in some way infringing on their rights, or that it was part of a British plot to slowly take away their rights.  Taking away the American colonists rights was really the main reason they began to turn away from Britain.