>>/45543/
I did not really mean the couple of top dogs, but meant every single men - including the top dogs. For example it needed people to decide to gamble their life on moving west (both those from Europe and the East Coast).
And yes GW too made a difference, them gaining independence at that time matters. If they gain independence later (maybe staying in the commonwealth, like Australia) they won't have the Civil War, which had a huge impact, it decided that the country will form around a common market, and this led to the huge economical rise which surpassed the economy of Great Britain, and remained unchallenged since then.