Studies of British empire building have characteristically concentrated on two broad periods of overseas activity. The first was the period of the ‘Second British Empire’ during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This saw a ‘swing to the East’ and the creation of a greater Indian Empire along with the first British footholds on the African coast. Second, much has been written about the age of ‘new imperialism’ in the later nineteenth century, which climaxed in the partition of Africa and the battle for concessions in China. This latter period has been the nursery of theories of imperialism since the days of Lenin and J. A. Hobson. In practice, however, empire building went on unabated through the middle decades of the nineteenth century, and did so even under ministries which formally disavowed territorial annexation, except in the case of colonies of white settlement. The 1850s and 1860s were witness to a particularly notable run of imperial adventures beginning with the consolidation of British power in the Punjab and Sind and the extension of dominion in the Malay peninsula, and ending with the so-called Arrow War with China, which effectively opened up this vast land to European influence and exploitation.

Curiously, the Arrow War and its consequences have received little attention from historians, even by comparison with its better-known precursor, the Opium War of 1839–42.