ABSTRACT
The beginning of the nineteenth century coincided with the first symptoms of Britain’s obsessive anxiety for the landward defence of India. Naturally enough it was in India itself that the anxiety first arose. The East India Company was responsible for the defence of its own territory, but until Napoleon’s vain threat to invade the subcontinent, the Company had never had to guard against danger from without, nor even to think about it; now it had to look to its fences.
