Alpha Book

II,
pp. 662 ff.] until in 1858 the crown finally took over the empire of
the East India Company, an empire stretching northward to the
Himalayas, westward to the Indus River, and eastward to the
Brahmaputra.
[Sidenote: The Straits Settlements]
[Sidenote: Australia]
In the years immediately following the War of American Independence
occurred two other important extensions of British power. One was the
occupation of the "Straits Settlements" which gave Great Britain
control of the Malay peninsula and of the Straits of Malacca through
which the spice ships passed. But more valuable as a future home for
English-speaking Europeans, and, therefore, as partial compensation for
the loss of the United States, was the vast island-continent of
Australia, which had been almost unknown until the famous voyage of
Captain Cook to Botany Bay in 1770. For many years Great Britain
regarded Australia as a kind of open-air prison for her criminals, and
the first British settlers at Port Jackson (1788) were exiled convicts.


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