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In the circumstances, Britain’s strategy was not a bad one. But if a coalition was ruled out - and with it offensive operations on the Continent - the only targets available were economic, colonial or maritime ones, precisely the goals that had made Britain so unpopular in the Revolutionary War. France’s ports were therefore blockaded - a move that was soon extended to foreign harbours that fell under French control - and the navy hastily put back on a war footing (so hastily, in fact, that many of the ships that were dispatched to the Mediterranean under Lord Nelson had to have their proper rigging fitted while they were already at sea). Within six months, seventy-five ships-of-the-line and 114 frigates were in commission. At the same time, there was also a renewed offensive in the wider world. By the end of the year Santa Lucia, Tobago, Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo had all been captured, the remnants of General Leclerc’s army driven from St Domingue, and the Maratha Confederacy - France’s last source of native allies in India - shattered beyond repair by an offensive in the Deccan that produced victories for the future Duke of Wellington at Assaye and Argaum as well as other successes at Delhi and Laswari. All this was perfectly understandable: the captured colonies had been useful bases for both French commerce raiders and attacks on British islands; the colonial trade continued to be central to the British economy; and the Marathas were potentially a serious danger to British influence in India. But the fact remains, there was nothing to suggest a direct commitment to Europe: to all intents and purposes, Britain still seemed to be fighting the wars of the eighteenth century.

Yet even in distant India Britain was fighting Napoleon. In 1803 the Maratha Confederacy was in theory the most powerful polity on the Indian subcontinent, occupying, as it did, a huge expanse of territory stretching from the Punjab to the frontiers of Britain’s key ally, Hyderabad. But in practice the Confederacy was weaker than it appeared. The ruler of this empire was the hereditary prince of the state of Satar, but he had almost no authority, real power seemingly lying in the hands of a chief minister known as the Peshwa. Yet the Peshwa in turn was also all but impotent, for power was actually exercised by a large number of local rulers who paid lip service (and not much else) to his suzerainty. While some of these rulers were little more than petty robber-barons, others - Jeswunt Rao Holkar, Maharajah of Indore; Daulat Rao Scindia, Maharajah of Gwalior; the Rajah of Berah; the Gaikwar of Baroda - were immensely powerful. Holkar and Scindia, in particular, possessed not just the swarms of irregular cavalry that typified most Indian armies, but also large forces of modern artillery and European-trained infantry. Scindia, for example, could put into the field seventeen battalions of ‘Western’ infantry, nicknamed the ‘Immortals of the Deccan’. In consequence, the Maratha Confederacy was hardly a unified state. Great and small, all of the Maratha rajahs and maharajahs were engaged constantly in raiding and warfare between themselves, which meant that there was nothing that resembled a common foreign policy. Eager to advance their own interests, many of the minor rulers were actually signing so-called ‘subsidiary treaties’ with Britain (see below). Enthusiastically fostered by Wellesley, British penetration of the subcontinent seemed set to continue indefinitely.

In 1803, however, the picture was transformed as the Peshwa was deposed by Holkar and replaced by a puppet ruler. An imposing figure noted as a bold and courageous military commander, the new strong man threatened to bring all the Maratha Confederacy under his sway. To Britain’s alarm, in the summer of 1803 three French agents were captured at Poona with documents calling on both Holkar and Scindia to rise against the British and granting Scindia’s chief European adviser, a French