Britain saw its colonists as a source of PROFIT. What colonists are is people that go to other places, claim land, and make their own colonies. This profited Britain because the colonies that are formed in other places have stuff that Britain doesn't have, and the colonies can come back to great Britain and gives them things that profit them. Also, because the colonists got more land, those lands would first belong to Great Britain because the colonists were not independent from Great Britain, and land costs a lot of money, which means that Britain is getting a lot of money from land.