These anticipations were soon fulfilled. Before the end of May, Lord Cornwallis had received the expected summons from the King's Government to proceed to Flanders. On the 2nd of June, he landed at Ostend; but his mission was not a successful one. He had interviews with the Emperor of Austria at Brussels, but His Imperial Majesty was obdurate and could not be induced to comply with the wishes of the British Government. Before the end of the month he was recalled to England; and was, on his arrival, in frequent communication with Pitt and Dundas on the subject of the prosecution of the war. "I have taken Lord Hertford's house in Lower Grosvenor Street," he wrote to his brother in July, "completely furnished, for one year, for 600 guineas, which gives me time to look about me. My expedition has not been a profitable one, but my baggage, horses, and wine are returned; and I shall keep everything in readiness till the end of the war, that I may not be subject to another expensive equipment." It was then in contemplation to confer upon him the military command in Flanders, to counteract the incapacity of the Duke of York; but the appointment never took effect, and it was well for him that it did not, for it would have placed him in an anomalous and trying position in which he might have acquitted himself with honour, but scarcely with success. therefore, a great relief to him to find that the scheme was abandoned. "I should have been," he wrote to Mr. Dundas, "in the most embarrassing and dangerous situation possible, with every prospect of ruin to myself, and very little probability of rendering any essential service to my country." Indeed, he feared that the mere suggestion might have done him injury at Court. "I conclude I am now completely ruined at St. James's," he said. "Indeed, I could not be much worse than I was before; but that is a circumstance which will not disturb my rest, nor abate in the smallest degree my attachment and affection for the great personage from whom I have formerly received much favour and kindness." It was, He was now eager to escape into the country, but the critical situation of affairs on the Continent detained him in London till the beginning of September, when he betook himself to Brome. From this place, he wrote on the 7th to Mr. Barlow:"The very critical situation of the affairs of Europe, and the part which I have thought it my duty to take in giving every possible assistance to Government, by personal services and military counsel, have a good deal diverted my attention, and still more the attention of those with whom I converse, from the affairs of India; which, however, next to the immediate safety of Great Britain, will be always uppermost at my heart. . . . When I tell you that I have not had ten days' leisure, since my return from India, to attend to my private affairs, and that my situation is now so uncertain that I may be called upon in twenty-four hours to go to Flanders, you will not expect long letters, and it would require a large volume, if I were to attempt to enter into the politics of Europe, and the horrors of France which increase daily, and exceed all power of belief." At the commencement of the following year, Lord Cornwallis was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance with a seat in the Cabinet. This compelled him, much against his natural inclinations, to spend the greater part of the year in London. In April, he wrote to his Indian correspondent, Mr. Barlow, assuring him that although he had little time to devote to Indian affairs, he had not ceased to take a lively interest in them :-"When I left India," he said, "I thought that I should have nothing to do on my return to this country but to look a little to Asiatic affairs, and to call the attention of Ministers to those points which I knew to be of the most pressing and important nature. The critical situation, however, of all Europe, and of our own country in particular, has entirely engrossed my mind, and the doubt whether we could possibly keep England has almost effaced all ideas of improving our Government in India." The following year (1796) still found him writing in the same strain. The critical state of affairs in Europe so occupied the minds of the King's Ministers, that they gave no heed to Indian affairs, and Cornwallis himself felt that he was powerless to interfere to any advantage. But the time was now approaching when there was to be also a "critical state of affairs" in our Indian possessions. The officers of the Bengal army were on the brink of mutiny. They dreaded a serious invasion of their rights, and were banding, or as it was said conspiring" together to maintain them. There was a scheme of “amalgamation" afloat, the result of which would have been seriously detrimental to the interests of the Company's officers, and they resisted it, in some instances with an amount of vehemence not consistent with military discipline. Indeed, the excitement at one time was so great that a very little would have stirred the smouldering fire into a blaze. The state of affairs was alarming, and the alarm communicated itself to the Government in England. It was plainly necessary to do something. The something to be done took the shape of a peace mission from home. Some high officer of the Government was to go out to India, conciliatory but resolute, with the olive branch in one hand, and the fasces of the law in the other. But who was to proceed on this mission? The choice lay between Mr. Dundas, the President of the Board of Control, and Lord Cornwallis, the sometime Governor-General of India; and for awhile the probabilities of selection oscillated between the two. Mr. Dundas was more willing to go than Lord Cornwallis; but the Government, who probably thought also that the latter was the more fitting agent of the two, declared that the services of Dundas could not be spared in that conjuncture at home; so most reluctantly Cornwallis accepted the mission, and forthwith began to make prepara. 66 Lord Mornington thinks exactly as I do both about India and yourself, I have only to add my sincere good wishes for your health and prosperity, and to express my hopes that when our dangers are over, we may meet happily in this country." tions for his voyage to India. "You will no doubt," he wrote from Culford, to a friend in India, on the 31st of January, 1797, "be much astonished at the news of my return to India, but my earnest solicitude for the welfare of my country, and my particular apprehensions lest our Asiatic possessions should either be torn from us, or rendered a useless and unprofitable appendage to the British Empire, have induced me to sacrifice every personal consideration, and to gratify the wishes of Government, and I may venture to say of the public at large, by coming forward again at this late period of my life, to endeavour to restore our affairs in India to the pros-Lord-Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief in Ire perous state in which I left them." And then he proceeded to give precise instructions regarding the domestic arrangements which he desired should be made for his reception. And now we come to an epoch in the great and varied career of Lord Cornwallis which, though to the general student of English history more interesting than any other, is the one of which most has been written by others, and of which I am least called upon to write. In a time of the greatest trouble and difficulty he was appointed | land. He had to combat a great rebellion, and in combating it he was as merciful as he was resolute and courageous. But, with India all this has nothing to do-nor has his later mission to the Continent. One passage of a letter will suffice to illustrate both. From Paris he wrote on the 18th of November, 1801,-“I have been so constantly occupied, and my mind has been so much agitated by the critical state of public affairs, and the very important part which I was obliged to take in the great questions of the Union, and the privileges proposed to be granted to the Catholics of Ireland, that I could attend to no other matters. On my return to England, on the change of administration, where I expected, (after winding up the Irish business, and pacifying those who had claims for services in the Union contest) to retire and enjoy some quiet, I was called upon, in consequence of the serious But this special mission to India belongs only to the "History of Events that never happened." The danger subsided, and with it the alarm. The officers of the Company's army, under sedative assurances, and satisfying concessions, began to return to their allegiance, and it was not necessary to apply the special remedies, of which I have spoken, to a disease which was dying out by itself. Instead of Lord Cornwallis going out to India as Governor-General, with his successor in his train, Lord Mornington was selected to be Governor-General in succession to Sir John Shore. The change delighted Lord Cornwallis. At the call of his king and his country, he was ready to go to India-as he would have gone anywhere, under a strong sense of duty-but he thank-preparations which the French were making to fully withdrew from the mission when he was no longer bound by these loyal considerations to undertake it. He had faith in the young statesman who had been selected for office; and he saw him depart with pleasure. "When the shameful conduct of the Bengal officers," he wrote to Mr. Barlow, in October, "threatened India with immediate ruin, and it was thought that my services might be of consequence, I did not refuse to come forward. The business of my instructions was ill-managed here, and the favourable turn of affairs in Bengal rendered my presence less necessary. It is not wonderful, therefore that I should avail myself of so fair an excuse to decline an arduous task, which from untoward eircumstances I should have undertaken with peculiar disadvantage. Lord Mornington, your new Governor-General, is a man of very considerable abilities, and most excellent character. I have known him from his childhood, and have always lived on the most friendly habits with him. He goes out with the best and purest dispositions. He is an enthusiast for the preservation of that plan of government which, without your powerful assistance, could never have been either formed or maintained. His lordship has no private views, nor a wish to do anything but what is for the public good; and I have taken upon myself to answer that you will have no reserve with him, either in regard to men or measures. Having assured you that invade us, to accept the command in the Eastern District, and by the date of this letter, you will see that I have now undertaken to put the finishing hand to the work of peace, which was most ardently desired by the nation, and which appeared to me to be necessary for the preservation of our country. . . The Definitive Treaty will, I hope, be concluded in a few weeks. Bonaparte has, for the present, tranquillised France. The people are kept in excellent order: would to God that the discontented in England could see the state of liberty which this country, so much the object of their envy, enjoys. All persons here, speak with horror of the Revolution." At last it seemed that the long-coveted season of repose was really at hand. The peace of Amiens was concluded; and Lord Cornwallis returned to England, and betook himself to the country ;"For a long time past," he wrote from Brome in September, 1802, "I have been out of the way of knowing what was going forward respecting India, and it was not until Lord Castlereagh called on me last week on his way from Ireland, (by Mr. Dundas's house in Scotland) to London, that I had an idea of the style of letters which have of late been sent by the Court of Directors to Lord Wellesley. I most earnestly hope that matters may be so accommodated as to induce his lordship to continue another year in the Government, which either with a view to its immediate or future effects, I conceive 1 to be of the utmost importance to the interests of the British Empire. . . . I have now retired for ever from all public situation, but my feelings are still alive to the honor and interests of my country, and I shall to the end of my life reflect with the most heartfelt satisfaction, that by adopting and patronising your suggestions, I laid the foundation of a system for the prosperity of our Indian Empire, which has so gloriously flourished, and risen to such height, under the splendid administration of Lord Wellesley." But, brilliant as were these prospects, the time soon came when the territorial acquisitions of Lord Wellesley alarmed Lord Cornwallis. It seemed to him that our empire was growing too large, and that we should find it difficult to administer its affairs with advantage to so immense a population. On this Fabject he wrote from Culford, in August, 1804, putting the whole case in a few pregnant sentences; -"By the last accounts from India, affairs appear to be in a most prosperous state. You have dictated the terms of peace, and have obtained every possession in India that could be desired. The question here from many persons is, Have we not too much? But I hardly know, when the power was in our hands, what part of our acquisitions we could prudently have relinquished." He little thought, when he wrote this, that out of the state of things that had then arisen in India, there was growing up that which in a very little time would draw him again from his retirement and compel him to go forth once more with the harness on his back. But so it was. Lord Wellesley had been playing the great game with such success that he had brought our Indian Empire to the very verge of bankruptcy. And the game was not yet played out. What then was to be done? Lord Wellesley was ambitious. Lord Wellesley was insubordinate. The advisers in whom he most trusted counselled him not to throw up the cards. Ent there was no money even to carry on The Trade; the war engulfed every rupee. To the Directors Leadenhall Street the crisis of ruin appeared to he imminent. They stood aghast at the prospect before them. It was necessary to do something and that speedily. Nothing but a change of government would suffice to meet the difficulties of the Orders might be sent to India; but it was one thing to draft instructions, another to secure obedience to them. It had been arranged that Sir George Barlow should succeed Lord Wellesley in the Governor-Generalship. But Barlow was a member of Lord Wellesley's government; and the Court of Directors were, therefore, alarmed at the thought of his succession. The King's Ministers concurred in opinion with the Company that it was desirable to send out an English statesman with no leanings towards the prosecution of the war-a case. safe man, moderate but resolute, and if clothed with the authority of a great foregone career, so much the better. It was only in the common course of things, that the thoughts of the Govern. Lent should have turned at once to Lord Corn wallis. There was a difficulty-an emergencyand again they turned to the old quarter for help. What followed may be told in his lordship's own words. Writing from Culford on January 6th, 1805, to Sir George Barlow, he said: "I can hardly figure to myself the astonishment which you must feel at hearing that I am again returning to the station of Governor-General, and lest you should suppose that I can in the smallest degree have altered my sentiments with regard to yourself, and have ceased to think you capable of discharging the duties of that office to your own credit, and to the honour and advantage of the Company and of your country, I take the earliest opportunity that offers to explain to you in a few words the circumstances which have produced this extraordinary event. You will recollect that in the course of last year I informed you that Lord Wellesley's neglect and contemptuous treatment of the Court of Directors was exceedingly embarrassing to the King's Government at home. A line of conduct on his part somewhat similar has of late extended itself to that very Government, and his Majesty's Ministers have been liable to be called upon to account for measures of great importance, of the causes of which they were totally ignorant, although opportunities had offered for communication. I shall enter no further into these matters, but pass over to what immediately concerns yourself and my appointment. A few weeks ago Lord Castlereagh came down to this place, and after some previous conversation about India, informed me that the dissatisfaction of the Court of Directors with the conduct of Lord W. had risen to such a height, that it was absolutely necessary that he should be desired to leave the Government, that Ministers were very uneasy at the present state of matters, and expressed the earnest wish of his Majesty's confidential servants, that I would for a short time take the direction of affairs in that country. I answered, that I had not been in the habit of refusing my services, whenever they might be thought useful, but that I was too old for such an undertaking, and I felt it to be the more unnecessary, as the person named for the succession to the Government was in my opinion more capable of making a satisfactory arrangement than myself. He then informed me that the appointment of any Company's servant to the GovernmentGeneral was at this moment out of the question; and in the particular case alluded to, it was the more impossible, as the Court of Directors could by no means be brought to consent, to the succession of a member of Lord Wellesley's government. After some discussion upon this subject, I proposed to undertake the present mission, provided that on my leaving the country I could be assured that you were to succeed me. Lord Castlereagh declared that an assurance of that kind was not to be expected, and could only say that my going would open the only chance for your succession. Unemployed as I have long been, and appeared likely to remain, in the line of my profession, and, in its present state, useless to my own family, I have consented to take the rash step of returning to India, by which, if I should ultimately be the means of placing the charge of our Asiatic Empire in your hands, I shall feel that I have rendered an essential service to my country." robust health, but they aggravated the growing Truly was it a hazardous duty, which he had thus undertaken at the age of sixty-five. There was nothing for which he longed more than for rest. He had an ample store of honour; he had an ample store of wealth. It was intended that he should sojourn only for a little while in India, and he could add but little, therefore, to either store. The service, indeed, upon which he was going was an unpopular and a thankless one. He was going upon a service of peace and retrenchment. Many private interests were likely to suffer grievously by the course of severe economy on which he was about to enter; and people, in such a case, rarely discriminate between the authors and the agents of the measures, which injuriously affect them. War is always popular in India; and there was scarcely a man in the two services from the veteran warrior Lake, to the boy-civilian Metcalfe, who did not utterly abhor and vehemently condemn the recreant policy of withdrawing from the contest before the great game had been played out. It is scarcely possible to conceive a mission less attractive than that on which the fine old soldier now set out, leaving behind him all that he held most dear, because he felt that it was his duty to go. It has been said that he "caught with the enthusiasm, which belongs to good and great minds, at the prospect of performing one more important service to his country before he died," and that he "lis-sonal staff, Lord Cornwallis embarked on board his tened with avidity to those, who, desirous of the authority of his great name to their plans, represented to him that his presence alone could save from inevitable ruin the Empire which he had before ruled with so much glory.' But I doubt whether he caught with any enthusiasm or any avidity at the proposal, honourable as it was to him and serviceable as it might be to his country. He did not hesitate to accept the charge entrusted to him. He had never hesitated in his life to do, at any cost to himself, that which he believed his country demanded from him. But he would fain have spent the remaining years of his life in repose. It was not enthusiasm or ambition that stirred him, but an irresistible sense of self-denying Duty. But he soon found that the task which he had set himself was one beyond his powers adequately to perform. The hardships of life on board ship tried him severely. He would not suffer any distinctions, with respect to food and water, to be made in his favour, and the vessel was inadequately supplied with both. The discomforts to which he was subjected might have been nothing to a young man in Sir John Malcolm. state-pinnace and proceeded up the river. But it was very soon apparent that he was breaking down. Day by day, the executive officers who attended him, saw that he was growing more feeble, and that sustained labour was becoming a greater diffi culty and a greater pain. There were times when he could converse clearly aud forcibly on the state of public affairs, and communicate to his chief secretary, Mr. Edmonstone, the instructions which he wished to be conveyed to the leading func tionaries, civil and military, in different parts of the country; but at others, he was wholly incapable of holding the helm, and the orders, which went forth in his name, though based upon the sentiments which he had been able to express at intervals, were never supervised by him. After a few weeks, as they passed up the river, it became only too painfully apparent that the band of death was upon the brave old man. He made great efforts to overcome his weakness. But the frail flesh succumbed; and, after lying for a while, insensible of all that was going on around him, he died at Ghazepore on the 5th of October, 1805, and was buried there without even a chaplain to per form the funeral service over his remains. HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH. CHAPTER XXVI. BY CHARLES KINGSLEY. NOW HEREWARD FULFILLED HIS WORDS TO THE PRIOR OF THE GOLDEN BOROUGH. In the course of that winter died good Abbot Brand. Hereward went over to see him, and found him mumbling to himself texts of Isaiah, and confessing the sins of his people. 866 Woe to the vineyard that bringeth forth wild grapes. Woe to those that join house to house, and field to field,'—like us, and the Godwinssons, and every man that could-till we 'stood alone in the land.' 'Many houses, great and fair, shall be without inhabitants.'-It is all foretold in Holy Writ, Hereward, my son. 'Woe to those who rise early to fill themselves with strong drink, and the tabret and harp are in their feasts: but they regard not the works of the Lord.' "Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge.' Ah-those Frenchmen have knowledge, and too much of it: while we have brains filled with ale instead of justice. 'Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure,' and all go down into it, one by one. And dost thou think thou shalt escape, Hereward, thou stout-hearted?" "I neither know nor care: but this I know, that whithersoever I go, I shall go sword in hand." "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword,'" said Brand, and blessed Hereward, and died. A week after came news that Thorold of Malmesbury was coming to take the abbey of Peterborough, and had got as far as Stamford, with a right royal train. Then Hereward sent Abbot Thorold word, that if he, or his Frenchmen, put foot into Peterborough, he Hereward would burn it over their heads. And that if he rode a mile beyond Stamford town, he should walk back into it barefoot in his shirt. Whereon Thorold abode at Stamford, and kept up his spirits by singing the songs of Roland-which some say he himself composed. was come. A week after that, and the Danes were come. A mighty fleet, with Sweyn Ulfsson at their head, went up the Ouse toward Ely. Another, with Osbiorn at their head, having joined them off the mouth of the Humber, sailed (it seems) up the Nene. All the chivalry of Denmark and Ireland And with it, all the chivalry, and the anchivalry, of the Baltic shores. Vikings from Jomsburg and Arkona, Cottlanders from Wisby; and with them savages from Esthonia, Finns from Äland, Letts who still offered, in the forests of Rugen, human victims to the four-headed Swantowit-foul hordes in sheep-skins and primæval filth, who might have been scented from Hun | stanton Cliff ever since their ships had rounded the Skaw. | Не Hereward hurried to them with all his men. was anxious, of course, to prevent their plundering the landsfolk as they went and that the savages from the Baltic shore would certainly do, if they could, however reasonable the Danes, Orkneymen, and Irish Ostmen might be. Food, of course, they must take where they could find it; but outrages were not a necessary, though a too common, adjunct to the process of emptying a farmer's granaries. He found the Danes in a dangerous mood, sulky, and disgusted, as they had good right to be. They had gone to the Humber, and found nothing but ruin; the land waste; the French holding both the shores of the Humber; and Osbiorn cowering in Humber-mouth, hardly able to feed his men. They had come to conquer England, and nothing was left for them to conquer, but a few peat-bogs. Then they would have what there was in them. Every one knew that gold grew up in England out of the ground, wherever a monk put his foot. And they would plunder Crowland. Their forefathers had done it, and had fared none the worse. English gold they would have, if they could not get fat English manors. "No! not Crowland!" said Hereward; "any place but Crowland, endowed and honoured by Canute the Great,-Crowland, whose abbot was a Danish nobleman, whose monks were Danes to a man, of their own flesh and blood. Canute's soul would rise up in Valhalla and curse them, if they took the value of a penny from St. Guthlac. St. Guthlac was their good friend. He would send them bread, mcat, ale, all they needed. But woe to the man who set foot upon his ground." Hereward sent off messengers to Crowland, warning all to be ready to escape into the fens; and entreating Ulfketyl to empty his storehouses into his barges, and send food to the Danes, ere a day was past. And Ulfketyl worked hard and well, till a string of barges wound its way through the fens, laden with beeves and bread, and ale-barrels in plenty, and with monks too, who welcomed the Danes as their brethren, talked to them in their own tongue, blessed them in St. Guthlac's name as the saviours of England, and went home again, chanting so sweetly their thanks to Heaven for their safety, that the wild Vikings were awed, and agreed that St. Guthlac's men were wise folk and open-hearted, and that it was a shame to do them harm. But plunder they must have. "And plunder you shall have!" said Hereward, as a sudden thought struck him. "I will show you the way to the Golden Borough-the richest minster |