Government
This chapter examines the ways in which, and the reasons why, British governments sought to facilitate what they regarded as benign forms of European penetration of the empire. Ministers successfully piloted through Parliament legislation designed to encourage foreign sailors to serve on British merchant ships in wartime. British governments, the Westminster Parliament, and colonial governors and their assemblies offered a range of incentives to encourage Europeans to migrate to the North American colonies. And the crown, ministers, and their agents negotiated inter-state agreements to enable regiments of German soldiers to be deployed for service in North America and India. The British state’s willingness to use continental European resources is not simply exemplified; the chapter also attempts to explain why, sometimes in the face of significant public opposition, ministers, officials, and other state servants encouraged and facilitated the deployment of foreign human capital in the empire.