Britannia’s Auxiliaries: Continental Europeans and the British Empire, 1740-1800

Britain’s overseas empire, though usually conceived as a national enterprise, designed to strengthen the British state and enrich British people, owed much to other Europeans. As settlers, soldiers, scientists, sailors, clergymen, merchants, and technical experts, they appeared in many different imperial sites, from North America in the west to India in the east. They also sustained the empire from outside, through financial investment, the purchase of British imperial goods, the supply of European products, and by aiding British imperial communication and offering social support to Britons from their own imperial possessions. Yet, despite the extensive involvement of other Europeans, the British Empire remained essentially British; continental Europeans acted as British auxiliaries, for the most part coming under British direction and control.