I think it only natural that the British considered the opportunities possible in regaining former colonies.

There's a cute scene in the opening of Verne's "Voyage to the Moon" where a bunch of Americans are considering their options now that the Civil War is over. One of them is "Say, weren't we once colonies of England? Why don't we go make England OUR colony?"

This turns out to be lower on their priority list than building a cannon which will shoot people to the moon. Verne even had an almost correct calculation for escape velocity.