In AD 1758, Britain took advantage of French military action in Europe to send forces to North America, where French and British settlers had been fighting for years. The result was the British capture of Quebec in 1759, followed shortly by the fall of Montreal, leaving most of Canada in British hands.

In India, the French and British East India Companies had been battling since the 1660s for commercial advantage. With France and Britain at war, their respective Companies fought for control of regional states. Under Robert Clive (1725-74), the East India Company won a series of battles in the south. In 1757, in the rich northern state of Bengal, allies of the French imprisoned British men and women in ‘the Black Hole’ of Calcutta. Clive recovered the city and, at the battle of Plassey, defeated the nawab of Bengal and 50,000 troops, gaining control of the state.

Clive’s formal acceptance of the diwani (land revenues) of Bengal on behalf of the Company in 1765 committed it to political control. The Company continued to gain territory, but was brought under parliamentary authority in the Regulation Act of 1773 and the India Act of 1784. It continued as a semi-official department of government until it was abolished during the Indian Mutiny of 1857.