Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/23

Rh tions which happily were not fulfilled. He does not feel inclined 'to abandon my children and every comfort on this side the grave, to quarrel with the Supreme Government in India, whatever it may be: to find that I have neither power to model the army nor to correct abuses; and finally, to run the risk of being beaten by some Nabob and disgraced to all eternity.' Cornwallis may have been thinking of the wearisome disputes between Hastings and Francis, and the support withheld by other members of the Council from the Governor-General.

In June, 1784, there came a distinct intimation that the Ministers intended to offer him the two posts of Governor- General and Commander-in-Chief, and in February, 1785, he was 'attacked,' as he phrases it, to take the Governor-Generalship. To this proposal, after a consideration of twenty-four hours, he gave a 'civil negative.' This it might be thought would have precluded any renewal of similar negotiations, and during the next year Cornwallis was much taken up with the claims to compensation preferred by the American loyalists, and by the proceedings of a Board or Special Commission for the fortification of our seaports, of which, with other distinguished naval and military officers, he was made a member. In the same year he was deputed to Berlin to attend a review of the Prussian army, and was received there with some civility by Frederic the Great, though it is expressly mentioned in a letter to Colonel Ross that