Britain's overseas Empire pre-eminently involved the sea. In a two-way process, ships carried travellers and explorers, trade goods, migrants to new lands, soldiers to fight wars and garrison colonies, and also ideas and plants that would find fertile minds and soils in other lands. These essays, deriving from a National Maritime Museum (London) conference, provide a wide-ranging and comprehensive picture of the activities of maritime empire. They discuss a variety of issues: maritime trades, among them the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Honduran mahogany for shipping to Britain, the movement of horses across the vast reaches of Asia and the Indian Ocean; the impact of new technologies as Empire expanded in the nineteenth century; the sailors who manned the ships, the settlers who moved overseas, and the major ports of the Imperial world; plus the role of the navy in hydrographic survey. Published in association with the National Maritime Museum. DAVID KILLINGRAY is Emeritus Professor of Modern History, Goldsmiths College London; MARGARETTE LINCOLN and NIGEL RIGBY are in the research department of the National Maritime Museum.

263 letters written by or to William Jardine and James Matheson... covers a period of rapid growth for Jardine, Matheson & Co, from 1827 when the founders first joined forces, to Jardine's death in 1843, shortly after the end of the Opium War

*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading After the Englishman Henry Hudson, under the aegis of the Dutch East India Company, sailed by Manhattan in 1609, he returned home with good news and bad news. Like the other explorers before him, he hadn't been able to find a water route to the Orient. He had, however, returned with maps (confiscated by the English) and beaver pelts. With that, it became clear that the region around the bay that would take Hudson's name was a very promising new territory for trade and settlement, which would become a serious bone of contention between the Dutch and the English for the rest of the century. In 1614, another Dutch East India merchant, Adriaen Block, entered through the narrows of the East River between Queens and Randall's Island, a difficult and dangerous passage that later sank numerous ships and that Block named Hell's Gate (Hellegat). The European world would know the name "Manhates" when Block returned to the Netherlands with new and improved maps. During the early 18th century, trade interests in South America led to the South Sea bubble, which economists have called "one of the most famous and dramatic episodes in the history of speculation." The South Sea Company's spectacular fall impacted not only its investors, but public confidence in corporations, investments, and even banking worldwide. How did the directors of one of the most successful joint-stock companies at the time, sought after in social circles as financiers and masterminds, come to be called before Parliament to testify? The anger over the dishonesty of the directors of the company resulted in one member of the House of Lords suggesting that the South Sea Company directors "be sewn up in sacks, along with snakes and monies, and then drowned." Though the history of the South Sea Company is obscure and unfamiliar to most, the regular references to the company and the scandal that surrounded it have lead it to be regularly referenced by economists, historians, and even investors today. It is a story centered around England's history of debt, loans, and banking, all against the backdrop of modern history's most famous empire. Perhaps the most famous trade company in all of history, the East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire. As a private company that became a non-state global power in its own right, the East India Company also serves as a cautionary tale all too relevant to the modern world's current political and economic situation. On its most basic level, the East India Company played an essential part in the development of long-distance trade between Britain and Asia. The trade in textiles, ceramics, tea, and other goods brought a huge influx of capital into the British economy. This not only fueled the Industrial Revolution, but also created a demand for luxury items amongst the middle classes. The economic growth provided by the East India Company was one factor in Britain's ascendancy from a middling regional power to the most powerful nation on the planet. The profits generated by the East India Company also created incentive for other European powers to follow its lead, which led to three centuries of competition for colonies around the world. This process went well beyond Asia to affect most of the planet, including Africa and the Middle East.