ABSTRACT
During the period 1790–1830, Britain vastly expanded its existing empire. At the same time, it was heavily engaged in warfare across much of the globe. Whether and how far these two developments were linked and interdependent will be the core concern of this book. With hindsight the British have typically disavowed such a connection. 1926 the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, denied that any relationship existed: ‘The empires of old [were] … created by military conquest and sustained by military dominion. They were of subject races governed by military power. Our empire is so different from those.’ 1 Such a reassuring gloss on the imperial experience exemplifies an enduring view that commerce and investment drove imperial policy, and that there was an endemic tension between a nation so focused on commercial progress and an interest in or commitment to militarism. Critics of British imperial policies conceded the existence of a contradiction, but insisted that Britain pursued her self-interest while embodying that contradiction. In 1787, Alexander Hamilton, one of George Washington’s leading wartime aides, wrote of Britain: ‘Commerce has been for ages the predominant pursuit of that country. Few nations, nevertheless, have been more frequently engaged in war.’ 2 Others, however, insisted that war sat uneasily with the maintenance of British economic interests. Lord Stormont, a prominent former ambassador, warned the House of Lords in 1791 during a debate on India that ‘The expense of a war … was a great disadvantage to a commercial country’, adding that ‘great caution ought to be taken how a nation, like Great Britain, … whose chief object it was, to promote its commerce, and consequently its prosperity’ became involved in war. 3
