Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/253

 dated 15 March; and on the 16th Cornwallis replied, assuring their lordships of his ‘readiness to proceed in the Royal Sovereign the moment her defects were made good, but that the very precarious state of his health obliged him to decline going out in a small frigate, a stranger to every person on board, without accommodation or any comfort whatever.’ This refusal was considered an act of disobedience, and the admiralty ordered a court-martial. The court pronounced a censure on him for not pursuing the voyage in one of the other ships of the squadron, but acquitted him on the charge of disobeying the order to proceed in the Astræa, accepting, it would appear, his defence that he had remonstrated against the order; ‘that his health would not permit him to go out under such circumstances, and that he would have resigned the command if the order had been made positive; but as to disobeying, he had no thought of it’ (Minutes of the Court-martial). Notwithstanding his virtual acquittal, Cornwallis considered himself ill-treated by the admiralty, and requested permission to strike his flag. This was readily granted, and he had no further employment under that administration.

On 14 Feb. 1799 he was made admiral, and in 1801 succeeded Lord St. Vincent in command of the Channel fleet. He resumed the command when the war broke out again in 1803, but without any opportunity of distinction. In March 1806 he was superseded by Lord St. Vincent, and had no further service. On the extension of the order of the Bath in 1815, he was nominated a Grand Cross. He was M.P. for Eye 1768–74, 1782–4, 1790–1807, and for Portsmouth 1784–90. He died on 5 July 1819.

Cornwallis is described as of middle size, stout and portly, and though strictly temperate, as having a jovially red face, which procured for him among the seamen the nickname of ‘Billy go tight.’ Other soubriquets—‘Blue Billy,’ ‘Coachee,’ and ‘Mr. Whip’—he is said to have owed to a habit of twiddling his forefinger and thumb (Naval Chronicle, xi. 100, 207, xvi. 114). His popularity is illustrated by the story told of him when in the Canada, which, though incorrect in the details, is possibly founded on fact. The men, it is said, mutinied, and signed a round-robin declaring that they would not fire a gun until they were paid. Cornwallis turned the hands up and addressed them: ‘My lads, the money cannot be paid till we return to port, and as to your not fighting, I'll just clap you alongside the first ship of the enemy I see, when the devil himself can't keep you from it.’ 

CORNYSSHE, WILLIAM (d. 1524?), musician, was a member of the Chapel Royal in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. The first information we have of him is derived from an entry in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII on 12 Nov. 1493, when 13s. 4d. was paid to ‘one Cornysshe for a prophecy.’ On 26 Oct. 1502 he was paid 30l. for three pageants, and in the same year he received 13s. 4d. ‘for setting of a carrall upon Cristmas day.’ According to Stow (Annales, ed. 1615, p. 488) he was the author of a satirical ballad against Sir Richard Empson, which he wrote at the request of the Earl of Kent. This it was which probably led to his being imprisoned in the Fleet, where he wrote a short poem called ‘A Treatise bitweene Trouth and Enformacon.’ A manuscript copy of this is to be found in the British Museum (Royal MS. 18, D. 11), and a bad text of it is printed in Skelton's ‘Pithy, Pleasaunt, and Profitable Workes’ (1568), where it is classed among the newly collected works. The manuscript version of the poem is headed ‘In the fleete made by me Wllm. Cornysshe, otherwise called Nyssewhete Chapelman wth the moost famost and noble Kyng henry the VIIth, his raigne the xixth yere the moneth of July,’ and begins ‘A. B. of E. how C. for T. was P. in P.,’ which possibly may stand for ‘A Ballad of Empson, how Cornysshe for Treason was Put in Prison.’ The pseudonym ‘Nyssewhete’ is evidently formed from the author's name, ‘wheat’ being put as a synonym of ‘corn.’ The poem contains many bitter complaints against informers; it is of small literary value, but part of it, ‘A Parable between Informacion and Musike,’ is interesting from its use of musical terms. Whatever may have been the reason for his imprisonment, Cornysshe was before long released, and reinstated in his appointment, for his name occurs as having played before Henry VII at Richmond with Kyte and ‘other of the Chapell’ in 1508–9; and on the death of William Newark in the latter part of 1509, he became master of the children at a yearly salary of 26l. 13s. 4d. On 1 Jan. 1511 he received a sum of 5l., and on 13 Feb. of the same year he played two prominent parts in a pageant at Westminster entitled ‘The Golldyn Arber in the Arche Yerd of Plesyer.’ For his dresses in this perform-