Company rule in India
During its first century of operation, the English East India Company focused on trade with the Indian subcontinent, as it was not in a position to challenge the powerful Mughal Empire,[40] which had granted it trading rights in 1617. This changed in the 18th century as the Mughals declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the Compagnie française des Indes orientales, during the Carnatic Wars in the 1740s and 1750s. The Battle of Plassey in 1757, which saw the British, led by Robert Clive, defeat the French and their Indian allies, left the Company in control of Bengal and as the major military and political power in India.[24] In the following decades it gradually increased the size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or via local puppet rulers under the threat of force from the British Indian Army, the vast majority of which was composed of native Indian sepoys.[41] The Company's conquest of India was complete by 1857. The Indian Rebellion that year eventually led to the end of the East India Company and India came to be ruled directly by the British Raj.
Loss of the Thirteen American Colonies
During the 1760s and 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the British Parliament's attempts to govern and tax American colonists without their consent,[42] summarised at the time by the slogan "No taxation without representation". Disagreement over the American colonists' guaranteed Rights as Englishmen turned to violence and, in 1775, the American War of Independence began. The following year, the colonists declared the independence of the United States and, with assistance from France, Spain, and the Netherlands would go on to win the war in 1783.
The loss of such a large portion of British America, at the time Britain's most populous overseas possession, is seen by historians as the event defining the transition between the "first" and "second" empires,[43] in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal.[39][44] The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1783 seemed to confirm Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success.[45][46] Tensions between the two nations escalated during the Napoleonic Wars, as Britain tried to cut off American trade with France, and boarded American ships to impress into the Royal Navy men of British birth. The U.S. declared war, the War of 1812, in which both sides tried to make major gains at the other's expense. Both failed and the Treaty of Ghent, ratified in 1815, kept the pre-war boundaries.[47]
Events in America influenced British policy in Canada, where between 40,000 and 100,000[48] defeated Loyalists had migrated from America following independence. The 14,000 Loyalists who went to the Saint John River in Nova Scotia felt too far removed from the provincial government in Halifax, so London split off New Brunswick as a separate colony in 1784.[49] The Constitutional Act of 1791 created the provinces of Upper Canada (mainly English-speaking) and Lower Canada (mainly French-speaking) to defuse tensions between the French and British communities, and implemented governmental systems similar to those employed in Britain, with the intention of asserting imperial authority and not allowing the sort of popular control of government that was perceived to have led to the American Revolution.[50]
Exploration of the Pacific
Since 1718, transportation to the American colonies had been a penalty for various criminal offences in Britain, with approximately one thousand convicts transported per year across the Atlantic.[51] Forced to find an alternative location after the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in 1783, the British government turned to the newly discovered lands of Australia.[52] The western coast of Australia had been discovered for Europeans by the Dutch explorer Willem Jansz in 1606 and was later named by the Dutch East India Company New Holland,[53] but there was no attempt to colonise it. In 1770 James Cook discovered the eastern coast of Australia while on a scientific voyage to the South Pacific Ocean, claimed the continent for Britain, and named it New South Wales.[52] In 1778, Joseph Banks, Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement, and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788.[52] Britain continued to transport convicts to New South Wales until 1840, at which time the colony's population numbered 56,000, the majority of whom were convicts, ex-convicts or their descendants.[54] The Australian colonies became profitable exporters of wool and gold.[54]
During his voyage, Cook also visited New Zealand, first discovered by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642, and claimed the North and South islands for the British crown in 1769 and 1770 respectively. Initially, interaction between the native Maori population and Europeans was limited to the trading of goods. European settlement increased through the early decades of the 19th century, with numerous trading stations established, especially in the North. In 1839, the New Zealand Company announced plans to buy large tracts of land and establish colonies in New Zealand. On 6 February 1840, Captain William Hobson and around 40 Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi.[55] This treaty is considered by many to be New Zealand's founding document,[56] but differing interpretations of the Maori and English versions of the text[57] have meant that it continues to be a source of dispute.[58]
War with Napoleonic France
Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon, in a struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented a contest of ideologies between the two nations.[59] It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was threatened: Napoleon threatened to invade Britain itself, just as his armies had overrun many countries of continental Europe.
The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones in which Britain invested large amounts of capital and resources to win. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy, which won a decisive victory over a Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805. Overseas colonies were attacked and occupied, including those of the Netherlands, which was annexed by Napoleon in 1810. France was finally defeated by a coalition of European armies in 1815. Britain was again the beneficiary of peace treaties: France ceded the Ionian Islands, Malta (which it had occupied in 1797 and 1798 respectively), Seychelles, Mauritius, St Lucia, and Tobago; Spain ceded Trinidad; the Netherlands Guyana, and the Cape Colony. Britain returned Guadeloupe, Martinique, Goree, French Guiana, and Réunion to France, and Java, and Suriname to the Netherlands.
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