'A Free though Conquering People'

Eighteenth-Century Britain and its Empire

P.J. Marshall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781040250815
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The present collection brings together a series of studies by Peter Marshall on British imperial expansion in the later 18th century. Some essays focus on the thirteen North American colonies, the West Indies, and British contact with China; those dealing specifically with India have appeared in the author's 'Trade and Conquest: Studies on the rise of British domination in India'. The majority, culminating in the four addresses on 'Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century' delivered as President of the Royal Historical Society, deal with the processes and dynamics of empire-building and aim to bring together the history of Asia and the Atlantic. The themes investigated include the pressures that induced Britain to pursue new imperial strategies from the mid-18th century, Britain's contrasting fortunes in India and North America, and the way in which the British adjusted their conceptions of empire from one based on freedom and the domination of the seas, to one which involved the exercise of autocratic rule over millions of people and great expanses of territory.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• I 'A Free Though Conquering People': Britain and Asia in the Eighteenth Century Inaugural Lecture in the Rhodes Chair of Imperial History. King's College, London, 1981
• II Empire and Authority in the Later Eighteenth Century Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History XV. London, 1987
• III The Eighteenth-Century Empire British Politics and Society from Walpole to Pitt 1742-1789, ed. Jeremy Black. Basingstoke, 1990
• IV Parliament and Property Rights in the Late Eighteenth-Century British Empire Early Modern Conceptions of Property, ed. John Brewer and Susan Staves. London, 1995
• V A Nation Defined by Empire, 1755-1776 Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History, ed. Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer. London, 1995
• VI Empire and Opportunity in Britain, 1763-75 Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 5. London, 1995
• VII Who Cared about the Thirteen Colonies? Some Evidence from Philanthropy Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History XXVII. London, 1999
• VIII The Case for Coercing America before the Revolution Anglo-American Attitudes: From Revolution to Partnership, ed. Fred M. Leventhal and Roland Quinault. Aldershot, 2000
• IX The Moral Swing to the East: British Humanitarianism, India and the West Indies East India Company Studies: Papers Presented to Professor Sir Cyril Philips, ed. Kenneth Ballhatchet and John Harrison. Hong Kong, 1986
• X The Caribbean and India in the Later Eighteenth Century: Two British Empires or One? Unpublished paper delivered at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2000
• XI Britain and China in the Late Eighteenth Century Ritual and Diplomacy: The Macartney Mission to China 1792-1794, ed. Robert A. Bickers. London, 1993
• XII Lord Macartney, India and China: The Two Faces of the Enlightenment South Asia XIX. Melbourne, 1996
• XIII Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: I, Reshaping the Empire Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 8. London, 1998
• XIV Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: II, Britons and Americans Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 9. London, 1999
• XV Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: III, Britain and India Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 10. London, 2000
• XVI Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: IV, The Turning Outwards of Britain Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6,th ser., 11. London, 2001
• Index