The British Empire after 1815: II

Abstract

The British always thought of and treated India differently from any other possession. This was partly due to the historical accident that it was first occupied and governed by the East India Company; yet India in fact required special treatment because it was unique. It had nothing in common with the settlement colonies because the British were there as alien ‘sojourners’; it differed from all other colonies of occupation in its vastly greater size and population. But the fundamental difference lay in its function as a British possession: it provided Britain with political and military power. India was very large and had a population of about 200 millions in the 1860s. In some ways it was a poor country, but its resources were harnessed to support a great military empire before the British arrived. The British had only to preserve and improve what they inherited from the Moguls to become one of the two great powers in the east. It was as though they had acquired a continental state like Russia and were free to use its resources. This was true of no other European dependency in the modern period.