page_title: Cornwallis in India
section_title: Penang and Nepal
hierarchical_section_title: Cornwallis in India / Penang and Nepal
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Cornwallis's predecessor, John Macpherson, had authorised negotiations with the sultan of Kedah for the establishment of a company trading post on the island of Penang.  Captain Francis Light, a trader familiar with the East Indies, negotiated an agreement in which the sultan, who was surrounded by powerful adversaries, received a share of the trade profits and a defensive military alliance in exchange for Penang.  Captain Light made representations to the sultan that the company had agreed to these terms, and occupied the island in August 1786.  Cornwallis, concerned that the military aspects of the agreement might draw the company into conflicts with the sultan's adversaries or the Dutch, withheld approval of the agreement and requested the company's directors to decide the issue.  When the company refused the military alliance, the sultan began blockading the island, renamed Prince of Wales Island by Light, and started in 1790 to accumulate troops with the view toward forcibly evicting the British. Cornwallis's brother William, then with the Royal Navy in the area, sailed from Penang to pick up troops in India for its defence. Captain Light, however, routed the sultan's forces in April 1791 before those reinforcements arrived. An agreement was then signed in which the company paid the sultan an annual stipend for the use of Penang.  The fort that Captain Light constructed to protect Penang's principal town, George Town, became known as Fort Cornwallis in the earl's honour.
  In 1792, King Rana Bahadur Shah of Nepal, with whom the company had established trade relations, requested military assistance.  Shah had been expanding his territory militarily by taking over smaller adjacent principalities, but a 1791 invasion of Tibet was met with a stiff Chinese response.  Cornwallis declined the king's request, sending instead Colonel William Kirkpatrick to mediate the dispute.  Kirkpatrick was the first Englishman to see Nepal; by the time he reached Kathmandu in 1793, the parties had already resolved their dispute.
caption: Fort Cornwallis, Penang
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