Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/476

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456 CORNWALLIS dynasty, and by the siege of Seringapatam, Feb. 1792, compelled the Sultan Tippoo (who in 1790 had attacked one of our allies) to surrender half his territory and to pay ^/^ 3, 600,000. He also effected many useful reforms in the East Indian administration. He was nom. K.G. 2 June 1786 (the ensigns being delivered to him at Calcutta, 4 Mar. 1787), and inst. 29 May 1801. On 8 Oct. 1792, he was cr. MARQUESS CORNWALLIS.^) Spec. Com- missioner to the allied armies in Flanders, 1794; Master Gen. of the Ordnance, 1 795-1 801. App. Gov. Gen. of Bengal for the 2nd time Feb. 1797, but did not proceed there, and resigned in the following Aug. From June 1798 to May 1 801, he was Lord Lieut, of Ireland, and Commander in Chief, finally suppressing the rebellion of 1798 and assisting in carrj^ing the act of Union. In Sep. 1 801, he was sent as Plenipotentiary to Amiens, signing the treaty there (an unfavourable one for England) on 27 Mar. 1 802. Early in i 805 he was, again, made Gov. Gen. of Bengal and Com. in Chief, with the intention of putting an end to the " ruinous warfare," but he died soon after landing. He w., 14 July 1768, in Stratton Str., Piccadilly, St. Geo., Han. Sq., Jemima Tulikens, sister of Arnoldus Jones, afterwards Skelton, of Branthwaite, Cumberland, da. of James Jones, sometime Capt. of the 3rd Guards, by Mary his wife, formerly Mary Tulikens, spinster. She d. at Culford Hall, 14, and was bur. 16 Apr.C') 1779, at Culford. He d. 5 Oct. 1805, aged 66, at Ghazipore, in the province of Benares, East India, where a mausoleum was erected over his remains. M.l. at St. Paul's, London. Will pr. May 1 806. (') (^) See note " a " on preceding page. C") The month of her death is usually given as July, but see her husband's letter of 5 May 1779, in Hht. MSS. Cotn., Various MSS., vol. vi, p. 319. V.G. ("=) He and Mrs. Powell appear in 1782, as "The British Fabius and Mrs. P . . w . . 11," in the notorious tete-a-tete portraits in Town and Country Mag., vol. xiv, p. 68. See Appendix B in the last volume of this work. As to his love for " Military glory," see some satirical lines in vol. i. Appendix H. " In addition to mental powers of a high order, he possessed moral attributes, a noble, humane, and generous spirit, unselfish devotion to duty, modesty and fortitude in good and evil fortune, which, more than mere intellectual superiority, make a man great, an honour to his country, and an ornament of its public life." {Hist. MSS. Com., Various MSS., vol. vi, Preface, p. xlii). Lord Teignmouth, who served under him and succeeded him in India, says of him, "I love and esteem his character, the honesty of his principle is inflexible; he is manly, affable, and good-natured; of an excellent judgement, and has a degree of application to business beyond what you would suppose." De Quincy writes of him in 1 86 1, long after his death, "I was disappointed to find no traces in his manner of the energetic activity I presumed him to possess: he seemed, on the contrary, slow and even heavy, but benevolent and considerate in a degree which won the confi- dence at once." Bishop Percy refers to him, on his arrival in Ireland, as " very civil and pleasant, but he will not be a favourite here, for he is very sober himself, and does not push the bottle. They also think him too merciful to the rebels." During his short Viceroyalty in Ireland there were no less than 44 creations and promotions in the Irish peerage (see Appendix H to this volume). His disgust at the dirty work he had to do was forcibly expressed by him: "How I long to kick those whom my public duty obliges me to court." V.G.