Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/22

16 experience of Cornwallis were to find scope for their action in a very different sphere, where he would not be hampered by the incapacity of a superior, and where what Gibbon terms the seals and the standard, or the civil and military power, would be vested in the same person. We have it on his own authority that Lord Shelburne in May, 1782, proposed to him 'to go to India as Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief.' It is clear from this, that notwithstanding the disaster of York Town, Cornwallis still possessed the confidence of statesmen high in office, and was thought fitted for important trusts. Yet about the same time we find him complaining that he had been treated very unfairly by the King and Mr. Pitt, and that these two great personages had agreed to expose him to the world 'as an object of contempt and ridicule.'

It seems from the correspondence that negotiations with a view to engage Cornwallis in the Administration were not very delicately and judiciously managed. It is curious too that Cornwallis, when turning over the suggestion of India in his mind, should have come to the conclusion that it offered no field for military reputation. Possibly the recollection of failures in America may have warped his judgment, and the recent defeat and capture of our officers by Haidar Alí may have obliterated the memories of Plassey and Baxár.

Cornwallis writes thus to Colonel Ross in anticipa-