gallantry than discretion, who, by heedlessly pursuing an advantage, converted it into a severe check at Cowpens; and though General Greene was routed with the loss of all his cannon at Guildford, it soon became evident that the plan of pushing the war into Virginia was based on imperfect information, and must fail. Until Washington came up with an overpowering force, the Americans and their allies were driven back and kept aloof. Of Lafayette, who was one of his opponents, Lord Cornwallis writes, "The boy cannot escape me;' but the boy did escape, and, according to Lord Stanhope, it is the most creditable feat in arms recorded of him.

On the 6th September, 1781, Sir Henry Clinton writes from New York to say that the only mode of relieving Lord Cornwallis is to join him with all the forces that can be spared, about 4000 men, which were already embarked. His Lordship replies (September 16): 'If you cannot relieve me very soon, you must be prepared to hear the worst.'

A French fleet of thirty-six ships of the line lay prepared to dispute the passage, and the utmost the English could muster was twenty-five. The days had not arrived when Nelson gave chase to a French fleet of twenty-five ships of the line with sixteen, and the French were only too happy to evade the conflict. The feeling amongst the British admirals and generals is thus described by the Hon. H. Brodrick, one of Lord Cornwallis's aides-de-camp, writing (Sept. 30) to the Right Hon. T. Townshend from New York:

'There have been frequent councils of war held here lately, and it was at one time determined to put a number of troops on board the men-of-war, and try to open the communication, which must, of course, bring on an action between the two fleets. Sir S. Hood and General Robertson, I hear, are the only officers who press that strongly; the others are very cool about it, particularly Graves. If this takes place, Sir Henry Clinton means to go with the troops.'

In the same letter Sir H. Clinton is censured for having permitted Washington to carry any part of his force southward, and the writer adds: 'After all, if Lord Cornwallis should fail, it will be owing entirely to his having trusted too much to promises of timely support from hence.'

Lord Cornwallis, left to his fate, made a gallant attempt to escape. His plan was to cross the river in boats during the night to Gloucester, force the enemy's lines, mount his men on horses taken from the French or the country-people, and make the best of his way through Maryland and the Jerseys to New York. The enterprise failed at starting, from the roughness of the weather, which prevented most of the troops from cross

ing, and on the 17th he capitulated. According to Wraxall Lord George Germain was the first to communicate the surrender to Lord North. 'And how did he take it?' was the inquiry. As he would have taken a ball in the breast,' replied Lord George, for he opened his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced up and down the apartment, "Oh God! it is all over!" This is about as true as that Pitt received his deathblow from the news of the battle of Austerlitz.

The terms and consequences are matter of history. In the war of pamphlets and the parliamentary discussions that ensued, Lord Cornwallis sustained no loss of military reputation, or a succession of high military appointments would not have been subsequently pressed upon him. Immediately after his arrival in England, each of the leading parties was anxious to send him to India, where the British name had lost much of its prestige by the surrender of General Matthews and his army to Tippoo Saib. The Company also wished him to go. But the actual appointment was delayed by frequent changes of government, and by the intrigues and game of cross purposes which sprang from them. Lord Cornwallis's own political opinions were unfixed, until the royal disapproval of the famous India Bill of the Coalition was intimated to the Peers. Then his part was taken, and by way of proving his disinterestedness he threw up his Constableship of the Tower. After making every allowance for military susceptibility, we cannot help thinking that he exhibited a little too much eagerness for the emoluments of office in his subsequent dealings with Lord Sydney and Mr. Pitt. On March 3, 1784, he writes to Colonel Ross:

'I know you will scold me for not being at least more familiar with ministers; but I cannot bring myself to it, and I see important fools every day taking the lead, and becoming men of consequence. I do not believe Lord T. and Mr. P. ever had any quarrel, and think that the former resigned because they would not dissolve the Parliament. I may however be mistaken in this: at present they are apparently friends.' The same tone prevails in a letter of June 13.

On Lord Waldegrave's death, the Governorship of Plymouth was conferred on Lord George Lennox, upon which Lord Cornwallis required an explanation from Lord Sydney. Their interview is thus described by himself:

:

'I told him that the promise to Lord G. L. could not be binding unless he required it; and that I had seen a letter from him to Major Gore, in which he said that he had rather have kept the Tower. "But," says I," why tell me this idle story? The contest lay between

Lord

Lord Townshend and Lord Edgecombe; and you well know, and have already confessed to me, that neither King nor Minister ever thought of me for it." I then said that if the King or Mr. Pitt had sent for me, and told me that my waiving my pretensions, and giving them a thousand pounds a-year out of my estate, was necessary for the support of Government in this country and for the affairs of Ireland, I would cheerfully have complied; but that I could not bear without resentment the usage I had met with; that every fool I met in the street condoled with and pitied me. I then went on to Lord Percy's getting the Grenadiers, and stated his behaviour to the King contrasted with mine. I then got up, said I could talk no longer on the subject, and wished him good morning. He said, "We must not part on these terms." I answered, "We can part on no other," and went out of the room. There is an end of the second and last chapter; and I am sacrificed to gratify that contemptible fellow Lord Edgecombe, to whom the Tower cannot be worth above 4007. a-year, as he loses his half-pay as Admiral. God bless you, my dear Ross, I will keep up my spirits, be frugal of my money, and I shall ever value your friendship as one of my greatest comforts.'

He then addressed a long letter to Mr. Pitt, exhibiting, we think, little sense of dignity, especially when the issue is made known:

The apologies made to me by Lord Sydney have only added insult to the injury, and, I am sorry to say it of one whom I have sincerely loved, were of so disingenuous a nature that I do not care to think of them. I told him, and told him truly, that had the King, or had Mr. Pitt, sent for me, and told me that it was necessary for the support of their government that I should not only waive my pretensions, but give up half of the income of my estate, I would cheerfully have complied, and gloried in the sacrifice. I have now, Sir, only to say that I still admire your character-that I have still hopes that your abilities and integrity will preserve this distressed country; I will not be base enough, from a sense of personal injury, to join faction, and endeavour, right or wrong, to obstruct the measures of Government; but I must add, and with heartfelt grief I do it, that private confidence cannot easily be restored.'

Two days afterwards he has an interview with Mr. Pitt, receives the Premier's assurance that no slight was intended, and, to show his own placability, consents to take back the Constableship of the Tower, which, he complacently remarks in announcing the fact to Colonel Ross, in point of income and security, I suppose to be as good as Plymouth'-a most lame and impotent conclusion. Yet Lord Cornwallis was considerably above the level of the many elderly or middle-aged noblemen and gentlemen who conceive that, by condescending to occupy places of the highest distinction and pocket large salaries

for

for a series of years, they have laid their country under a lasting obligation, and exhibited as much patriotic self-devotion as Leonidas or Cincinnatus.

In the autumn of 1785 Lord Cornwallis accepted a mission extraordinary to Frederick the Great with the view of ascertaining that monarch's views and intentions regarding several of our foreign relations. In a private letter he gives a curious description of the manoeuvres of the troops which, under Frederick's handling, had frequently outmanoeuvred, as well as beaten in the field, an overwhelming superiority of the best troops in Europe:

My reception in Silesia was not flattering; there was a most marked preference for La Fayette; whether it proceeded from the King's knowing more of France, and liking better to talk about it, I know not. The cavalry is very fine; the infantry exactly like the Hessian, only taller and better set up, but much slower in their movements. Their manœuvres were such as the worst General in England would be hooted at for practising; two lines coming up within six yards of one another, and firing in one another's faces till they had no ammunition left: nothing could be more ridiculous.'

On the 23rd of February, 1785, he thus announces his acceptance of the two highest appointments in India:

The proposal of going to India has been pressed upon me so strongly, with the circumstance of the Governor-General's being independent of his Council, as intended in Dundas's former bill, and having the supreme command of the military, that, much against my will, and with grief of heart, I have been obliged to say yes, and to exchange a life of ease and content, to encounter all the plagues and miseries of command and public station.'

How often, on reading such passages, do we feel tempted to exclaim with Dr. Johnson, 'My dear Lord, clear your mind of cant!' Inscrutable are the operations of the mind, and boundless its powers of self-deception. Twice during his American campaigns, when he could ill be spared, did Lord Cornwallis abandon his command, and return to England for the indulgence-the natural and pardonable indulgence-of his private feelings. Yet he was as ready as ever to persuade himself and others that private feelings were with him as dust in the balance against the stern call of duty. He had just been quarrelling with an old friend, Lord Sydney, and on the point of breaking with a minister whom he personally admired, for passing him over in the distribution of places; and he would hardly have admitted that his ambition was limited to a sinecure. To judge from his letters, the longing wish of his heart was a fair field for the acquisition of military fame. He had adroitly declined the India

offer

offer till it included everything he wished, and then, having closed with it, he expatiates on the annoyance of having to exchange a life of ease and content to encounter all the plagues and miseries of command and public station'!-The plagues and miseries of living in princely state in palaces; of making one's own fortune and that of one's friends; of working out those schemes of public improvement which every ardent spirit has cherished; of extending or consolidating an empire; of rivalling the fame of a Clive, or anticipating that of a Wellesley!

There is a passage in Lord Macaulay's Essays' in which he favours the same train of thinking. Construing literally a professed preference of literature to politics, he cruelly assures an ex-official that he has little cause to envy any of those who, at most, can only expect that, by relinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures, by passing nights without sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauties of nature, they may attain that laborious, that invidious, that closely watched slavery which is mocked with the name of power.' Then how happens it that nineteen out of twenty who have got their discharge are so anxious to resume their fetters? Because the struggle for that laborious, that invidious thing is after all in their estimation the great game, and the possession of it the grand prize of life; because they believe ambition to be the last infirmity of noble minds; because (as one poet has said) the innate tendency of our being is to strive upwards and onwards; because, in the stirring words of another,—

'One glorious hour of crowded life

Is worth an age without a name.'

"Oh, l'heureux temps, quand j'étois si malheureuse!' exclaimed the French coquette who was no longer teased by lovers nor agitated by jealousy. Give me back, give me back, the wild freshness of morning' after a late division, would be the cry of many a veteran statesman, who, very much against his will, has been left at full liberty to enjoy the beauties of nature in summer or winter as he thinks best.

Whatever we may think of Lord Cornwallis's horror of high and lucrative appointments, we fully believe that no public man was ever more constantly alive to the sense of duty or more powerfully impressed by it. In this respect he resembled the Duke of Wellington; and if the required sacrifices had been as great as he professed or fancied, he would have been equal to them. It is also to be observed that he courted instead of shrinking from responsibility, by insisting on ample powers, by always hurrying to the post of honour and danger, and by boldly

grappling