South Asian issues had not figured prominently in Westminster politics during the first half of the eighteenth century, and therefore most parliamentary politicians were ill-equipped to tackle the problems related to British activity in India that emerged in the 1760s. Members of both Houses had great difficulty in placing such unfamiliar issues in their proper context, and they chose instead to define the Indian problem as something that should be dealt with by the East India Company as an internal matter. Indeed, few parliamentarians, especially before 1772 or 1773, would have accepted that they had any part to play in the formulation of British policy as it applied to India. To an extent this is understandable. Of all the Members elected to the Parliament of 1768 only nineteen, seven of whom were directors of the Company, had actually been to the subcontinent. The remainder lacked even the most elementary knowledge of the subject. This state of affairs prevailed throughout the period under study and beyond and, while there is much evidence that those in key executive positions sought to educate themselves on Indian issues, most ordinary parliamentarians remained ill-informed about events in Bengal.

Ignorance, however, could not be excused on the grounds that information on Indian affairs was either scarce or unavailable. A wealth of printed material was available to those seeking insights on British activity in South Asia and, in 1767, the first of several parliamentary inquiries examined various aspects of the Company's affairs at home and abroad.