ETWs in game languages

[Sisco Americanus]

It's no suprise the BBC sounds like that, they make an effort to get people who speak RP English (like The Queen). Talk shows tend to have more regional accents now however.

I live in Derbyshire, which is a rather rural part of England and has one of the oldest (and oddest) accents. Speaking Queen's English will get you funny looks around these parts. I know that from personal experience (apparently I sound 'a bit posh' ).

England's a small country, but we have plenty of variation in accents.

I didn't really even take notice of this sort of thing until I was watching Doctor Who (Stop judging me!!) and everyone asked Christopher Eccleston why he had a northern accent (to which his response was always, "A lot of places have a north."). British generally sounded British to me, with the only distinction being "high class" British as opposed to "low-class" British, all of which I subsumed under the term "cockney." After that I really began to pay attention and noticed the distinct differences in the regional dialects of England. Fascinating subject, really.

If the English of the 18th century sounded closer to modern Americans than to modern English, which modern Americans do linguists think they sounded like? There are a lot of different accents in North America, of course. Canadians sound different from New Englanders, Minnesotans sound different from people from the Mid-Atlantic, etc. Do linguists think they would have sounded closest to the mid-atlantic/Virginia tidewater accent, as someone suggested (it does sound very genteel, by the way)?

EDIT: I've followed the link on the previous page and am seeing that my question has already been discussed.