ABSTRACT
In 1787 Henry Dundas, the British minister with responsibility for the affairs of the East India Company, composed a set of ‘Considerations’ on a possible treaty between the Dutch and the British in Asia. The two countries have each one original great object in view and which do not clash in the smallest degree. That of Great Britain is to maintain and preserve the empire which she has acquired in comparison of which even trade is a subordinate or collateral consideration. In the early eighteenth century the British had perceived their role overseas in terms not unlike that they attributed to the Dutch Republic. The empire of the seas of the early eighteenth century required little ruling beyond the regulation of its trade. British communities overseas were largely left to govern themselves. An empire over ‘vast territory and various peoples’, however, supposed the exertion of a due degree of metropolitan authority, and therefore the existence of an ‘imperial state’.
