Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/171

Rh to European politics. Nothing could be so prejudicial to themselves as well as to the general good order of the Settlement as to instil into their minds a spirit of party and of opposition to all government. Liberty and equality is a most pernicious and dangerous doctrine in all parts of the world; but it is particularly ill-suited to the Company's servants in India, who are to thrive by minding their own business and paying a due regard to the commands of their superiors in the service.'

In April, 1799, when the resistance to the Union of Ireland was most felt, Cornwallis sincerely repents that he did not return to Bengal. In July he gets a letter from the Marquess of Wellesley, then Lord Mornington, who had succeeded Sir John Shore, giving an account of the assassination of Mr. Cherry at Benares in an émeute got up by the partisans of Vizir Alí. This news filled him with sorrow, but a few months afterwards a mail from India caused him much gratification. After the final storming of Seringapatam, in May 1799, the army voted an address to the late Commander-in-Chief, who had carried on two campaigns against Tipú. The officers presented him with the turban of the deceased ruler and the sword of a Marth chief. It was brought to England by General Harris, great-grandfather of the present Governor of Bombay (1890).

It is amusing to find Cornwallis's old-standing and strong dislike to Madras re-appearing in his disap-