Imperial figures also observed this as a fact of empire, with General Charles Napier, who became Commander in Chief in India, declaring in 1844 that ‘our object in conquering India, the object of all our cruelties, was money – lucre: a thousand millions sterling are said to have been squeezed out of India in the last sixty years. Every shilling of this has been picked out of blood, wiped, and put into the murderers’ [East India Company’s] pockets.’
