Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T16:01:12.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The Geography and Protection of Maritime Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2013

Peter A. Ward
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Get access

Summary

‘[Your orders are] to best protect the Trade … of His Majesty's Subjects and His Allies in the East Indies.’

An understanding of the physical features of this enormous station, including its primary weather patterns, and the trade routes which formed the skeleton of British interest and power in the region is helpful to appreciate how challenging it was for Rainier to provide trade protection.

The Station's Geographic Features

The actual area which the station covered consisted of more than thirty million square miles. It stretched from Canton in China down through the Philippines to Sydney in Australia, then west across the Indonesian archipelago and Bay of Bengal to India. Onwards over the Indian Ocean it went northwards into the Red Sea. Its western boundary depended on whether or not the Cape of Good Hope was in British hands. When it was, Rainier's command stopped short of the African coast south of Madagascar together with the key French islands of Mauritius and Reunion. Before the Cape was taken in 1795, and after it was returned to the Netherlands in 1801, Rainier had the doubtful privilege of covering the entire sea-lanes westwards to South Africa.

Type
Chapter
Information
British Naval Power in the East, 1794-1805
The Command of Admiral Peter Rainier
, pp. 122 - 148
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×