From its inception in 1600 to its domination of the entire Indian subcontinent by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the British East India Company gained more and more territory. With the acquisition of new territory, it employed several explorers and cartographers to provide maps and other information on its territories, most notably James Rennell, from 1767 in Bengal. As Rennell proceeded to make maps, the lack of precise measurement was noticed. In 1800, shortly after the Company victory over Tipu Sultan, William Lambton, an infantry soldier with experience in surveying, proposed to remedy precisely that, through a series of triangulations, initially through the newly-acquired territory of Mysore, and eventually across the entire subcontinent.