Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/123

Rh ment his health was still drunk at the annual dinner given on St. Andrew's day, with all the warmth usually displayed by Scotchmen on such festive occasions.

There can be no doubt that in an administration of six years Cornwallis had never forfeited the regard and esteem of the English community, while he had secured a place in the memory of the natives by devoting a large portion of his time to their best interests. His position as Chief of the army as well as Governor-General at the head of the Civil Service, and the novitas regni, offered him advantages which in the case of a modern Viceroy it would be vain to expect. This portion of the memoir may fittingly be concluded with his reply to an address from the British inhabitants of Calcutta, forwarded to him through the Court of Directors, a year and a half after he had left India.

Writing on the 16th of April, 1795, to the chairman of the Calcutta meeting, he says: —

'I beg leave to trouble you to inform the gentlemen who signed the address that I feel myself no less flattered and honoured by the favourable opinion which so respectable a body of people have been pleased to deduce of my public and private conduct in the government of Bengal, than by the kind and cordial terms in which that opinion has been expressed.

'I likewise request that you and all the other subscribers will believe that I shall ever remember through life how much I was indebted to the zeal and abilities of many of the gentlemen who signed the