ABSTRACT
The British army that sailed around the eastern Mediterranean before landing near Alexandria was copied by a second British army that covered off the shores of the Indian Ocean before landing at Kosseir in the Red Sea. Most members of the British government, who knew little about the Indian political system – though no less than they knew of central and eastern Europe – had no wish to learn more. The British relied on the navy to hold a ring around their continental enemies, to prevent them from breaking out into the wider world and in hopes that, as Britain's fortunes improved, the perimeter of the ring could be shrunk. Marquess Wellesley's explanation failed to convince Rainier, who had neither received orders from the Admiralty countermanding the expedition to Batavia nor intelligence that a French fleet had broken through the British blockade on its way to the Indian Ocean.
