Early nineteenth-century Bengal is frequently used as a case study to demonstrate how debates over press liberties acquired additional stakes in colonial settings. Yet existing scholarship overlooks how the expansion of Britain's military presence overseas during and after the Napoleonic Wars complicated reformist ambitions for a free press. In India, army officers formed a significant proportion of the European population and were both enthusiastic readers of and contributors to the fledgling colonial press. Using the example of the Calcutta Journal, one of India's first daily newspapers, the author shows how the boundaries of what officers could and could not publicize in the press were negotiated through legal proceedings and disciplinary action and through debate within the newspaper itself. The preservation of military discipline was the primary motivation for press regulation during this period, and the military continued to be viewed as an exception to the rule even as commitment to government intervention began to wane. Yet within the military itself, officers strenuously debated their right to speak out and claim their place within the public sphere. These disputes reflect wider divisions within the army and reveal the ambiguous position of Britain's military at a time when the relationship between state and civil society was being reconfigured.

中文翻译：

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“有害的宣传”：东印度公司、军队和新闻自由，1818-1823 年

十九世纪早期的孟加拉经常被用作案例研究，以证明关于新闻自由的辩论如何在殖民地环境中获得额外的利害关系。然而，现有的学术研究忽视了拿破仑战争期间和之后英国在海外军事存在的扩张如何使改革派的新闻自由野心复杂化。在印度，军官占欧洲人口的很大一部分，他们既是新兴殖民媒体的热心读者，也是投稿人。使用的例子加尔各答杂志作为印度最早的日报之一，作者展示了官员可以和不可以在媒体上公开的内容的界限是如何通过法律程序和纪律处分以及报纸内部的辩论来协商的。维持军事纪律是这一时期新闻监管的主要动机，即使对政府干预的承诺开始减弱，军队仍然被视为规则的例外。然而在军方内部，军官们就他们发表意见和在公共领域占据一席之地的权利进行了激烈的辩论。这些争端反映了军队内部更广泛的分歧，并揭示了英国军方在国家与公民社会之间的关系正在重新配置时的模棱两可的立场。