British General Charles Cornwallis, the Earl Cornwallis, was appointed in February 1786 to serve as both Commander-in-Chief of British India and Governor of the Presidency of Fort William, also known as the Bengal Presidency. He oversaw the consolidation of British control over much of peninsular India, setting the stage for the British Raj. He was also instrumental in enacting administrative and legal reforms that fundamentally altered civil administration and land management practices there. According to historian Jerry Dupont, Cornwallis was responsible for "laying the foundation for British rule throughout India and setting standards for the services, courts, and revenue collection that remained remarkably unaltered almost to the end of the British era."
He was raised to the title of Marquess Cornwallis in 1792 as recognition for his performance in the Third Anglo-Mysore War, in which he extracted significant concessions from the Mysorean ruler, Tipu Sultan. Returned to England in 1793, he was engaged in administrative and diplomatic postings until 1798, when he was posted to the Kingdom of Ireland as Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief. In 1801, he was again posted to India. He arrived in July 1805 and died in October in Ghazipur.
Background
Lord Cornwallis was a British army officer, civil administrator, and diplomat. His career was primarily military in nature, including a series of well-known campaigns during the War of American Independence from 1776 to 1781 that culminated in his surrender at Yorktown. Following his return to England in 1782 he was prevented by his parole from further participation in the war, and financial demands eventually caused him to seek a position of greater pay than the half-pay that military officers received when not in service.
India in the range of 1780s
The area encompassed by modern-day India was significantly fractured following the decline of the Mughal Empire in the first half of the 18th century. Trading outposts, known as factories, were established by various European nations including Denmark–Norway, Portugal, France, and the Dutch Republic. These dotted both the Coromandel (east) and Malabar (west) coasts of the subcontinent, although many of these had been established with the formal permission of a local ruler (which was sometimes secured by force of arms). The Kingdom of Travancore dominated the southern tip, the Kingdom of Mysore held sway over the centre of the peninsula, and the Maratha Empire, a confederation of loosely allied principalities, dominated the northern reaches from Calcutta to Bombay. Although there were significant British presences at Bombay and Madras, each governed by a separate presidency, the Bengal region, including Calcutta, had come under the direct rule of the British East India Company in 1757, with authority to levy taxes, and its presidency dominated the others. Its civil head, the Governor-General of Fort William, ranked ahead of those of Madras and Bombay. Cornwallis quickly established himself as a transformational leader.
British colonial administration was dominated in the 1760s and 1770s by Warren Hastings, the first man to hold the title of Governor-General. The military arm of the East India Company was directed during the Seven Years' War and the Second Anglo-Mysore War by General Eyre Coote, who died in 1783 during the later stages of the war with Mysore. Company policy, as implemented by Hastings, had involved the company in intrigues and shifting alliances involving France, Mysore, the Marathas, and factions within those and other local territories.
Appointment Cornwallis was first considered for a posting to India during the ministry of the Earl of Shelburne in the spring of 1782. Shelburne asked Cornwallis if he wanted to go to India as governor general, an idea Cornwallis viewed with favour, as it provided employment without risking his parole status. However, Shelburne was a weak leader, and was turned out of power in early 1783, replaced by a coalition government dominated by men Cornwallis (and King George) disliked, Charles James Fox and Lord North. Cornwallis, who normally avoided politics (in spite of holding a seat in the House of Lords), became more vocal in opposition to the Fox-North ministry, hoping his support would be repaid by the next government.
With the ascendancy of William Pitt the Younger to power in December 1783, doors to new positions were opened to the earl. Pitt first offered him the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, which he politely refused. He also made it clear that, were he posted to India, he would want the supreme military command in addition to civil control. When informed that Pitt was agreeable to this demand, he went through a period of soul-searching, torn between the conflicting demands of family and country. This, however, was not the only troubling issue. When Parliament took up consideration of assignments in India in August 1784, it was only prepared to offer one of the two posts, which he again refused to consider. Passed over for other military postings, Pitt placated him with the post of Constable of the Tower.
After refusing another inadequate entreaty from Pitt to take a post in India in February 1785, Cornwallis's demand for both posts were finally met a year later, on 23 February 1786. Departing London in May, he arrived at Madras on 22 August 1786, after "a most prosperous and expeditious passage", and at Calcutta on 12 September. Although he was accorded a welcome suitable to his rank, the acting governor-general, John Macpherson, was unhappy at being replaced. He attempted to reserve for his own use the Government House, which was normally reserved for the governor-general. Cornwallis, after having his oaths of office administered, immediately announced his intention to occupy the residence.
Administrative reforms Cornwallis was charged by the directors of the British East India Company to overhaul and reform its administration in India. The company had historically paid its functionaries (revenue collectors, traders, and administrators) in India relatively little, but allowed them to engage in trade for themselves, including the use of company shipping for the purpose. As long as the company was profitable, this open door to corruption and graft at the company's expense was overlooked. However, the rise of manufacturing in Britain led to a collapse of prices for textiles and other goods from India, and the company's involvement in wars on the subcontinent had also been expensive. By the time Cornwallis arrived the company was losing money. Its employees, however, continued to profit personally, without caring whether or not the company made money. Cornwallis sought to change this practice, first by refusing to engage in such dealing himself, and second, by securing pay increases for the company's functionaries while denying them their personal trading privileges.
Another area of reform that Cornwallis implemented was the reduction of nepotism and political favouritism as means for advancement and positions within the company. Seeking instead to advance the company's interests, he sought out and promoted individuals on the basis of merit, even refusing requests by the Prince of Wales to assist individuals in the latter's good graces.
Judicial reforms
Prior to the earl's arrival, judicial and police powers in territories controlled by the company were a confusion of differing standards that were also either inconsistently or arbitrarily applied. Part of Cornwallis's work was the introduction of criminal and judicial regulations that to a significant degree still underpin the Indian judicial system. Indian cities, much like British cities of the time, were poorly policed, and crime was widespread. Different penal and civil codes were applied to Hindus and Muslims, and the codification of these codes in different languages meant that it was virtually impossible for justice to be properly and consistently applied. Much of the criminal justice system in Bengal remained in the hands of the nawab, the nominal local ruler of the company's territory. Furthermore, individuals with powerful political connections in their community often were able to act with impunity, since no one suffering at their hands was likely to press charges for fear of retribution. Hastings had several times made changes to policing and the administration of justice, but none of these had had a significant impact on the problem.
Cornwallis received critical assistance from others in his effort to introduce legal reforms. William Jones, an expert on languages, translated existing Hindu and Muslim penal codes into English so that they could be evaluated and applied by English-speaking judges. Cornwallis began in 1787 by giving limited criminal judicial powers to the company's revenue collectors, who already also served as civil magistrates. He also required them to report regularly on detention times and sentences given. In 1790 the company took over the administration of justice from the nawab, and Cornwallis introduced a system of circuit courts with a superior court that met in Calcutta and had the power of review over circuit court decisions. Judges were drawn from the company's European employees. These reforms also included changes to the penal codes to begin harmonising the different codes then in use. By the time of his departure in 1793 his work on the penal code, known in India as the Cornwallis Code, was substantially complete.
One consequence of the Cornwallis Code was that it, in effect, institutionalised racism in the legal system. Cornwallis, in a manner not uncommon at the time, believed that well-bred gentlemen of European extraction were superior to others, including those that were the product of mixed relationships in India. Of the latter, he wrote "as on account of their colour & extraction they are considered in this country as inferior to Europeans, I am of opinion that those of them who possess the best abilities could not command that authority and respect which is necessary in the due discharge of the duty of an officer." In 1791 he issued an order that "No person, the son of a Native Indian, shall henceforward be appointed by this Court to Employment in the Civil, Military, or Marine Service of the Company." Cornwallis's biographers, the Wickwires, also observe that this institutionalisation of the British as an elite class simply added another layer on top of the complex status hierarchy of caste and religion that existed in India at the time. Cornwallis could not have formalised these policies without the (tacit or explicit) agreement of the company's directors and employees.
Cornwallis's attitude toward the lower classes did, however, include a benevolent and somewhat paternalistic desire to improve their condition. He introduced legislation to protect native weavers who were sometimes forced into working at starvation wages by unscrupulous company employees, outlawed child slavery, and established in 1791 a Sanskrit college for Hindus that is now the Government Sanskrit College in Benares. He also established a mint in Calcutta that, in addition to benefiting the poor by providing a reliable standard currency, was a forerunner to India's modern currency.
The Permanent Settlement The company's acquisition of the territories of Bengal in the 1760s led to its decisions to collect taxes in the area as a means of reducing investment capital directed toward India. A variety of taxation schemes were implemented in the following years, none of which produced satisfactory results, and many of which left too much power over the natives in the hands of the tax collectors, or zamindars. The company's directors gave Cornwallis the task of coming up with a taxation scheme that would meet the company's objectives without being an undue burden on the working men of its territories.