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riding an elephant, a turban on my head and in my hands the new Koran I would have written to suit my needs.’ By the spring of 1798 all was ready, and on May 19 an armada carrying French troops sailed secretly from the ports of Toulon and Marseilles.

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Napoleonic Nightmare
     
    It was from the lips of a native of Bengal that Lord Wellesley, the new Governor-General of India, first heard the sensational and unwelcome news that Napoleon had landed in Egypt with 40,000 troops. The man had just arrived in Calcutta from Jeddah, on the Red Sea, aboard a fast Arab vessel. A full week was to pass before the tidings were officially confirmed by intelligence reaching Bombay via a British warship. One reason for the delay was that the French invasion force had managed to give the British Mediterranean fleet the slip, and it had not been known for some weeks whether it was bound for Egypt, or was heading round the Cape for India.
    The fact that Napoleon was on the move with so large a force had caused grave alarm in London, especially to Dundas and his colleagues at the Board of Control. For the East India Company’s position in India was still far from secure, even if it was now the paramount European power there, with a virtual monopoly of the country’s commerce. Fighting the French and others had almost reduced it to bankruptcy, and the Company was in no position to take on Napoleon. It was with some relief, therefore, that it was learned that he had got no further than Egypt, although this was threat enough. Widespread conjecture now followed as to what Napoleon’s next step would be. There were two schools of thought. One argued that he would advance overland through Syria or Turkey, and attack India from Afghanistan or Baluchistan, while the other was convinced that he would come by sea, setting sail from somewhere on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.
    Dundas was sure that he would take the land route, and even urged the government to hire Russian troops to intercept him. The Company’s own military experts believed that the invasion, if it came, would be sea-borne, although the Red Sea was closed for much of the year by contrary winds. To guard against this danger, a British force was hastily dispatched round the Cape to block the exit to the Red Sea, and another sent from Bombay. The strategic significance of the Red Sea route was not lost on Calcutta. Some years earlier, news of the outbreak of war between Britain and France had reached India this way in record time, enabling the Company’s troops to steal a march on the unsuspecting French there. Although, as yet, there was no regular transportation service via the Red Sea and Egypt, urgent messages and travellers in a hurry occasionally went that way rather than by the usual route around the Cape, which could take up to nine months or more, depending on the winds and weather. But Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt was to put a stop to this short cut for a while.
    Unlike senior government and Company officials in London, Wellesley himself did not lose too much sleep over Napoleon’s presence in Egypt. He was frankly far from convinced that it was possible to launch a successful invasion from there, whether by land or by sea. This, however, did not prevent him from turning the fears of those in London to his own advantage. A firm believer in forward policies, he was as keen to advance the Company’s frontiers in India as the directors were to keep them where they were. They simply wanted profits for their impatient shareholders, not costly territorial gains. As it was, the Company had found itself drawn reluctantly and expensively into the vacuum created by the disintegration of Mogul rule in India, and therefore increasingly involved in government and administration. Consequently, instead of being able to provide their shareholders with the annual dividend they had been guaranteed, the directors faced ever-mounting debts and the perpetual threat of bankruptcy. Fighting off