ABSTRACT
The French Wars saw the greatest expansion of British imperial dominion since the creation of the colonies of settlement in Ireland and America in the seventeenth century. Britain should build an 'insular empire' throughout the Mediterranean, fostering the industry of Greeks and Italians by the creation of a wealthy yeomanry. Britain's acquisition of large parts of the old Dutch empire can be seen in the same light. The Cape was important essentially as a strategic holding on the route to India and would protect Britain's dominance there since all Europeans would have to stop on the Cape when travelling to India. Asia, the main theatre of the new imperialism, continued to provide the same commodities, and its total share of Britain's world trade actually fell between 1780 and 1820. Historians have underestimated the importance of a residual 'divine rights of kings' in eighteenth-century English political theory and practice, but Great Britain's ancien regime went through many evolutions.
