There is an interesting chapter in Ian Morris'book "War. What is it good for ?".

The author stated that during mid-18th century, new form of empire emerged, where the achievement was not to occupy as much territory as possible to reproduce and extent the hierarchized monarchy, but to divert trade routes, and achieve power by economic growth for many, better than tributes and taxes for happy-fews could do.

I don't buy the whole thing, Ben Wilson's "Empire of the Deep: The Rise and Fall of British Navy" clearly show that true free market, the low-cost, all-purpose Holland free-trade was evinced by high-cost, national-centred, protected British trade. And greed for territories and high taxation was still there, especially in India.

But still, the way GB conceived dominance in Europa was certainly less arming than Napoleon's one, whose biggest diplomatic and economical blunder was not the Continental Blocus, but theabsence of economical alternative, due to his system of unequal customs against his own allies, strangling their economy and good will, with few middle-term benefits for France.