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Superlative ALS as Governor-General of India, signed “Cornwallis,” one page both sides, 7.5 x 9.5, October 14, 1792. Handwritten letter from Charles Cornwallis, addressed from Calcutta, in full: “I have received your letter of the 29th of March, and am much obliged to you for transcribing the substance of what you said in Parliament especially the Indian War, and my sentiments previous to it. You will long since have learnt by my letter that went in the Pheonix, that I felt no serious displeasure at any thing you had said or written, and I trust, you will think no more about the matter. Every thing is quiet in this quarter of the Globe, and we are anxiously turning our eyes to the event of the War on the Continent, and what is still more in interesting to us, the progress of the Associators and Reformers in England. I hope they will not establish La Lanterne [the iron lamp-post at the corner of Parisian streets, used by Revolutionary mobs for lynchings] in London, for after broiling seven years in this country, I should not relish being hanged as an Aristocrate as soon as I get home, and I don't see how I could possibly escape after being placed by Mr. Paine between Catherine [the Great] and Tippoo [the Sultan of Mysore], who have neither of them shown any respect for the rights of Man." In fine condition. Cornwallis letters with any relation to the American Revolution are exceptionally rare and coveted.
Cornwallis had a distinguished and successful career after the debacle of Yorktown (for which he was not personally blamed) and served as Governor-General of India from 1786 to 1793. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man had been published in 1791, embodying the ideas of liberty and equality, and defending the French Revolution against the attacks of Edmund Burke. It was written before the execution of Louis XVI and the excesses of the Terror, and when Britain and France were still at peace. An establishment figure like Cornwallis would have regarded “Associators” (those in England who had formed ‘associations’ in support of the principles of the Revolution) and “Reformers” with deep suspicion.
Paine's bracketing of Cornwallis with Catherine the Great and the bloodthirsty Tippoo is highly significant coming from this ideological Founding Father of the American Revolution. It occurs in a passage where Paine is advocating spending the nation's wealth on a system of supporting the elderly instead of maintaining hereditary privilege: ‘Let peace and justice, let honour and humanity, let even hypocrisy, sycophancy, and Mr. Burke, let George [III]… Let Catherine, Cornwallis or Tippoo Sahib, answer the question.’
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