The Company also had the pick of the best candidates in the military labour market since it paid its sepoys significantly more, and more regularly, than anyone else: Bengal army sepoys classed as ‘gentlemen troopers’ earned around Rs300 a year, while their equivalents in Mysore earned annually only Rs192 (four times the Rs48 Tipu paid an ordinary soldier); those in Avadh earned annually as little as Rs80.*33 As Burton Stein nicely put it: ‘The colonial conquest of India was as much bought as fought.’34
