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The British were also able to draw on more resources than their competitors in India. They could draw on more ships and sailors, which allowed them to isolate their rivals in India and cut them off from their home countries. Without supplies and reinforcements, they were easily picked off or defeated by the British. This, in particular, was the main factor in their defeat of the French. The East India Company was also able to draw on the Royal Navy's support, the largest maritime force in the world, in the period. The British also had many more financial resources, and they could assemble larger armies, often composed of native soldiers, which gave them a decisive military advantage. <ref>Bandyopadhyay, p. 78</ref> These factors all meant that by at least the 1760's that the British were not to have any serious European rival for two centuries.

Britain, on the face of it, should never have been able to conquer India. It had no direct presence in the country, had a smaller population, and it was very far away. Indeed, they left the conquest of India to a private company, the East Indian Company. However, the British East India Company was able to lay the foundation of an empire in the Indian sub-continent because, from a British perspective, a fortuitous series of circumstances.