William Cornwallis Of alehouses

William Cornwallis

Of alehouses

I write this in an alehouse, into which I am driven by night which would not give me leave to find an honester harbour. I am without any company but ink and paper and them I use instead of talking to myself. My host hath already given me his knowledge but I am little bettered. I am now trying whether myself be better in his discretion.
The first to note here is how honestly every place speaks and how ill every man lives. Not a post, not a painted cloth in the house but cries out Fear God, and yet the parson of the town scarce keeps this instruction. It is a strange thing how men belie themselves—everyone speaks well and means naughtily. They cry out if man with man breaks his word, and yet nobody keeps his promise with virtue. But why should these inferiors be blamed since the noblest professions are become base? Their instructions rest in the examples of higher fortunes, and they are blind and lead men into sensuality. Methinks a drunken cobbler and a mere hawking gentleman rank equally, both end their pursuits with pleasing their senses—this the eye, the other the taste.
What differs scraping misery from a false cheater? the director of both is covetousness and the end game. Lastly, courting of a mistress and buying of a whore are somewhat like—the end is luxury. Perhaps the one speaks more finely but they both mean plainly. I have been thus seeking differences, and to distinguish of places I am fain to fly to the sign of an alehouse and to the stately coming in of greater houses. For men, titles and clothes, not their lives and actions, help me. So were they all naked and banished from the Heralds’ books. They are without any evidence of pre-eminence, and their souls cannot defend them from community.
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William Cornwallis

Admiral Sir William Cornwallis GCB (10 February 1744 – 5 July 1819) was a Royal Navy officer who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, governor-general of India. He is depicted in the Horatio Hornblower novel, Hornblower and the Hotspur.

Early life and career

William Cornwallis was born 10 February 1744 and entered the navy in 1755. His promotion was rapid and in 1766 he reached post-rank. Until 1779 he held various commands doing the regular work of the navy in convoy. In that year he commanded HMS Lion (64) in the fleet of Admiral Byron. The Lion was very roughly handled in the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779 and had to make her way alone to Jamaica. In March 1780 he fought an action in company with two other vessels against a much superior French force off Monti Cristi, and had another encounter with them near Bermuda in June. The force he engaged was the fleet carrying the troops of Rochambeau to North America. It was too strong for his squadron of two small ships of the line, two 50-gun ships, and a frigate.
After taking part in the second relief of Gibraltar, Cornwallis returned to North America and served with Hood in the Battle of St. Kitts and with Rodney in the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782. Some very rough verses which he wrote on the action have been printed in Leyland's "Brest-Papers," published for the Navy Records Society, which show that he thought very ill of Rodney's management of the battle.
In 1788 he went to the East Indies as commodore. He remained there until 1794. He played a role in the war with Tippoo Sahib and helped to reduce Pondicherry in August 1793. At Pondicherry he took the frigate HMS Minerva as his flagship, and commanded a small flotilla that included three East Indiamen - Triton, Princess Charlotte, and Warley. Cornwallis's promotion to rear-admiral dates from 1 February 1793; on 4 July 1794 he became vice-admiral.