Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/182

176 Calcutta; and rode out every day when not prevented by the weather or by swellings in the legs, of which there had already been an ominous mention in some of the letters from Dublin.

Throughout January, February, and the greater part of March, 1802, the terms of the proposed Treaty were sifted, analysed, and pulled to pieces till the patience of Cornwallis was nearly exhausted. 'What can be expected,' he writes, 'from a nation naturally overbearing and insolent, when all the powers of Europe are prostrating themselves at its feet and supplicating for forgiveness and future favour, except one little island, which by land at least is reduced to a strict, and at best, a very inconvenient defensive?' More than once he was in dread of the renewal of a bloody war or the alternative of the dishonour and degradation of his country. He wished 'himself again in the backwoods of America, at two hundred miles distance from his supplies, or on the banks of the Cauvery without the means of either using or withdrawing his heavy artillery.' At length, however, every difficulty was surmounted in one way or other: the stipulations in favour of the Prince of Orange, the articles relating to the Porte, the arrangement about Malta and Portugal, with some compromises and concessions, were all definitely settled. The Peace was concluded and the Declaration signed on March 25th, 1802. The signatures were affixed to the Treaty a few days afterwards. Almost anticipating an expres-