The British colonial administrator Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley (1760-1842), served as governor general of India. He was one of the most vigorous expansionists to hold that office.

Richard Wellesley was born June 20, 1760, at Dangan Castle, Ireland, the eldest son of the 1st Earl of Mornington. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. On his father's death in 1781, he inherited the title and seat in the Irish House of Lords. Three years later he entered the English House of Commons, and in 1786 he was made a lord of the Treasury. In 1793 William Pitt the Younger appointed him to the Board of Control, where he was initiated into the problems of British India.

Even before he arrived in India as governor general in April 1798, Wellesley had developed a plan to fight renewed French interest in India. He pursued the expansion of British power by annexation...