Recruitment and Reform in the East India Company Army, 1760-1800

Abstract

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the role of the East India Company was significantly altered. In the early part of the century, the main thrust of Company activity was commercial, but this began to change as the French challenged British interests in India and conditions on the sub-continent demanded political and military involvement. Lucy Sutherland has summed up these changes succinctly:The new period was to see a network of English control spread over the neighboring Indian territories and an expansion of territorial power which the whole history of the Company in India made inevitable but which, thanks to the clash with the French and the spectacular exploits of Clive and his colleagues, came more suddenly than anyone could have expected. The Company had long had experience of the problems of government as well as those of administration of commerce; but now (except in the rising China trade) it was those of the government which began to prevail.