CHAPTER VIII

Summary

When the operation of private interests, in the conduct of great affairs, is neither instructive by the inferences which may be drawn from it; nor important by the consequences to which it leads, it escapes the curiosity of the historian; whose inquiries utility ought rigidly to circumscribe. Disregarding, then, what ever share ministerial intrigues may have had, in the fluctuations of counsel which attended the choice of a new Governor-General, it is sufficient for us to state, that after Lord Hobart was appointed, on the 23d of October, 1793, to the government of Madras, he was nominated, on the 24th of December, in the same year, to succeed the Marquis Cornwallis, as Governor-General of India. That Lord Hobart, who enjoyed honourable and affluent prospects at home, and at that time filled an office of great dignity and trust, would not consent to leave his country for less than the assurance of the highest place, was well understood. Ministerial volition was, of course, the origin of both appointments. The administration, however, of Sir John Shore, who, as senior member of the council, succeeded immediately upon the resignation of Lord Cornwallis, was not interrupted till the month of March, in the year 1797, when Lord Cornwallis was nominated a second time to fill the offices of Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief; and the appointment was announced to the different Presidencies in India. A measure so extraordinary seemed to declare that there was something extraordinary in the cause of it. Extraordinary, however, as was the appearance of such an appointment, it remained without effect.