Recently John Pocock has presented the history of the British empire ‘as that of an archipelago, situated in oceans and expanding across them to the Antipodes’. As partly directed to New Zealanders, this is a useful attempt to remind them that their history, both Polynesian and European, has been part of something much larger and more complex than the nation-state. Yet from the perspective of British history this image of empire appears to depict the outcome of a process of geographical redescription, rather than the process itself.

We have seen Britain define itself as an island nation by contradistinction to ‘continental’ France (or China). We have seen western Europe, and Britain within it, constructed as a maritime alternative to ‘continental’ Asia (and America). We have seen English-speaking Americans claim an insular independence from the affairs of Europe. In this chapter we encounter a maritime redescription (rather than critique) of the British empire. This was an empire not only held together by, but in some sense composed of, water.