Cornwallis in India

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.

John Shore (who went on to succeed Cornwallis as Governor-General) and Charles Grant, two men he came to trust implicitly, were the most important contributors to what is now called the Permanent Settlement. The essence of the arrangement they came up with in the summer of 1789 was that the zamindars would effectively become hereditary landholders, paying the company tax based on the value of the land. Shore and Cornwallis disagreed on the term of the scheme, with Shore arguing for a ten-year time limit on the arrangement, while Cornwallis argued for a truly permanent scheme. Cornwallis prevailed, noting that many of the company's English revenue collectors, as well as others knowledgeable of company finance and taxation, supported permanency. In 1790 the proposal was sent to London, where the company directors approved the plan in 1792. Cornwallis began implementing the regulations in 1793.

Critics of the Permanent Settlement objected to its permanency, claimed that the company was forgoing revenue, and that Cornwallis and others advocating it misunderstood the historic nature of the zamindars. The Wickwires note that Cornwallis relied extensively on advice not only from John Shore, who had extensive experience in India prior to Cornwallis's arrival, but also from the revenue collectors in the various districts, who were almost uniformly in favour of a permanent settlement with the zamindars. He was also clear on the need to protect the ryots (land tenants) from the excesses of the zamindars, writing, "It is immaterial to government what individual possessed the land, provided he cultivates it, protects the ryots, and pays the public revenue."

## Penang and Nepal

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.

## War with Mysore

Immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, ending the Second Anglo-Mysore War, Tipu Sultan, the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, restated his hatred for the British, declaring that he would seek to renew conflict with them. Cornwallis, upon his arrival in India, took steps to modify or abrogate agreements with the Maratha Empire and with the Nizam of Hyderabad (both of whom had territories on Mysore's northern border) that he saw as problematic with respect to the provisions of the 1784 treaty. He did assure them that if France became involved in conflict against their territories that the company would assist them. Pursuant to this policy, he refused to send company troops to assist the Marathas and the Nizam in their war with Mysore to recover previously lost territories.

### Early campaigns

Tensions between Tipu and the Nizam and the British were raised when, in 1788, the East India Company gained control over the Circar of Guntur, the southernmost of the Northern Circars, pursuant to an earlier agreement with the Nizam. In exchange, the company agreed to station some of its troops with the Hyderabadi army. By 1789, tensions between Tipu and his neighbours and vassals to Mysore's west, including the Kingdom of Travancore, also rose noticeably. Travancore, listed in the 1784 treaty as a British ally, acquired from the Dutch East India Company two forts located within the territory of Cochin, a Mysorean vassal state. The Dutch had never paid tribute to anyone for these forts since gaining control of them, but the fact that they were within Cochin's bounds was sufficient for Tipu to dispute Travancore's claim. He began massing troops at Coimbatore and making threatening gestures toward Dharma Raja of Travancore. British authorities in Madras warned Tipu that acts of aggression against Travancore would be met with a British response, and Cornwallis began urging John Holland, the governor of Madras, to begin military preparations. On 29 December 1789, Tipu attacked Travancore's defences. Hollond, however, was not a military man, and rather than acting with vigour, he temporised and attempted negotiation with Tipu. He was replaced in early 1790 by General William Medows, to whom Cornwallis gave the authority for a military campaign against Mysore. Cornwallis began negotiating with the Marathas and the Nizam for their support, since the British forces in India were significantly lacking in cavalry, one of Tipu's strengths. The Marathas and the Nizam both had significant cavalry forces, and they were interested in recovering territories lost to Mysore in earlier conflicts. However, they were too weak to attack Mysore individually, and did not trust each other, so they preferred to wait until it was clear the British were committed to act against Mysore.

Medows' campaign in 1790 was a limited success. He occupied the Coimbatore district against minimal opposition, but a forceful counterattack by Tipu reduced the British holdings to Coimbatore itself and a few other outposts. Tipu had also descended to the coastal plain, where he plowed through the Carnatic and even met with the French at Pondicherry in a fruitless attempt to draw them into the conflict. By September 1790 the British allies were taking the field, but still did not want to face Tipu's strong force without significant British support. Consequently, Cornwallis decided to personally take control of the main British force from Medows. In early February 1791 he began a campaign that was squarely targeted at Mysore's capital, Seringapatam.

### First campaign against Seringapatam

One of the largest issues confronting Cornwallis in managing the army was its diversity. In addition to British Army and East India Company European forces, there were German troops from Hanover, and a large number of native sepoys from a diversity of cultural backgrounds, speaking different languages and having varied religious and dietary requirements. To meet the needs of this patchwork of forces, the army was followed by a number of camp followers that was unusually large by comparison to typical European or North American armies, further increasing the need for reliable supply. The army he took over from General Medows had 15,000 troops and 60,000 camp followers. He permitted the artist Robert Home to accompany the army on its campaign; the resulting artwork is one of the legacies of the campaign.

Cornwallis was sensitive to the fact that Tipu was likely to deny the invading army access to local forage and provisions, so he made arrangements for a large supply of provisions and arranged for the use of elephants to assist in the movement of the army's siege equipment. He also encouraged the Marathas and the Nizam to step up their advances to join his army as quickly as possible so that he could take advantage of their cavalry.

Cornwallis departed Velhout, near Madras, on 5 February, reaching Vellore on 11 February. After several days of rest, the army set out with the apparent intention of crossing the Eastern Ghats directly west of Vellore. However, this was a feint, and Cornwallis turned the army north and instead crossed the mountains at Muglee. Tipu, who had taken steps to defend the more southerly passes, had not defended this one, and the army met no resistance. In fact, it met no significant resistance until it neared Bangalore, one of the strongest fortresses in eastern Mysore. On 5 March, Colonel John Floyd, leader of the British cavalry, was lured into a trap set by Tipu that cost the army 70 men and 250 valuable horses. Cornwallis brushed off the loss and proceeded to besiege Bangalore. On 7 March the city's walls were breached, and the city was stormed through the opening, sending its defenders scurrying. Cornwallis gained control of the whole city except its fortress, which was stormed on the night of 21 March after its walls were breached. Tipu, from his camps outside the city, offered only weak resistance, ineffectually attempting to impede the siegeworks and assist the besieged fortress during the final assault.

After securing Bangalore, Cornwallis began to move against Tipu, who retreated toward Seringapatam. The lack of cavalry, however, hampered the British effort, so Cornwallis ordered the army north to make junction with the nizam's troops. When they finally met about 60 miles (97 km) from Bangalore, Cornwallis described Teige Wunt's cavalry as "extremely defective in almost every point of military discipline", and their presence in the army ultimately presented more difficulties than assistance. Instead of acting as flanking companies and foraging on their own, they preferred to remain with the main army and consume its provisions. This forced Cornwallis to alter the army's route again to join with a supply train carrying additional provisions. The army returned to Bangalore on 28 April and then set out for Seringapatam.

The march was significantly slowed by early monsoon rains that turned the march into a muddy mess. In spite of appeals by Cornwallis to Teige Wunt, the nizam's men continued to consume provisions, and the army's provisions began to run short. Tipu retreated before the army, employing scorched-earth tactics to deny his enemy provisions. Baggage was left behind as draft animals died, and the army, including its officers, were on half rations. The rains flooded the Kaveri River, which was difficult to cross even under favourable conditions, and which separated the army from a British force under Robert Abercromby that was waiting on the far side of Seringapatam for Cornwallis's arrival.

On 13 May, near the village of Arakere, about 10 miles (16 km) below Seringapatam, Tipu decided to offer battle from a position on nearby heights. In the ensuing battle, complicated by the rains, Cornwallis prevailed, routing Tipu's forces, which retreated into Seringapatam. Following the battle, Cornwallis made the difficult decision to retreat, as the army's supply situation had become so desperate that a siege would have been impossible, even if he could have joined with Abercromby's troops. A hoped-for junction with Marathan troops also seemed unlikely, as Tipu had successfully prevented communication and intelligence of their position from reaching Cornwallis, and the most recent reports placed them some distance off. After ordering Abercromby to retreat on 21 May, Cornwallis ordered his siege train destroyed and began to retreat toward Bangalore on 26 May. That very day, he was met by an advance company of the Marathan army. The next day that army, totalling some 40,000 cavalry, joined with his. The Marathan army was well-provisioned, so they were able to relieve some of the British army's stresses, although the prices they charged for their provisions were exorbitant. The combined army reached Bangalore on 11 July. Tipu took advantage of the retreat to make a concerted attack on Coimbatore, which fell after a lengthy siege in November.

### Second campaign against Seringapatam

The armies of Parshuram Bhau and Teige Wunt then left the grand army to pursue territorial gains in Mysore's northern territories. Whereas the earl's younger brother, Commodore William Cornwallis, was engaged in the naval Battle of Tellicherry, Cornwallis spent the remainder of 1791 securing his supply lines to Madras and clearing the way to Seringapatam. To this end he laid siege to Nundydroog in November and Savendroog in December, both of which fell after unexpectedly modest efforts. He also ordered a massive supply operation to ensure that adequate supplies and pay for his army and those of the allies would be available. Spies were sent to infiltrate Tipu's camps, and he began to receive more reliable reports of the latter's troop strengths and disposition.

The relations between Cornwallis and the allies were difficult. The Mahrattan military leaders, Parshuram Bhau and Hari Pant, had to be bribed to stay with the army, and Cornwallis reported the Hyderabadi forces to be more of a hindrance than a help; one British observer wrote that they were a "disorderly rabble" and "not very creditable to the state of military discipline at Hyderabad."

On 25 January, Cornwallis moved from Savendroog toward Seringapatam, while Abercromby again advanced from the Malabar coast. Although Tipu's men harassed the column, they did not impede its progress, and it reached the Mysorean capital on 5 February. Cornwallis established a chain of outposts to protect the supply line from Bangalore and planned an attack for that night, even though Abercromby had not yet arrived. Cornwallis responded with a night-time attack to dislodge Tipu from his lines. After a somewhat confused battle, Tipu's forces were flanked, he retreated into the city, and Cornwallis began siege operations. On 12 February Abercromby arrived with the Bombay army, and the noose began to tighten around Tipu. By 23 February, Tipu began making overtures for peace talks, and hostilities were suspended the next day when he agreed to preliminary terms.

Among the preliminary terms that Cornwallis insisted on was that Tipu surrender two of his sons as hostages as a guarantee for his execution of the agreed terms. On 26 February his two young sons were formally delivered to Cornwallis amid great ceremony and gun salutes by both sides. Cornwallis, who was not interested in significantly extending the company's territory or in turning most of Mysore over to the Mahrattas and Hyderabad, negotiated a division of one half of Mysorean territory, to be divided by the allies, in which the company's acquisition would improve its defences. He later wrote, "If we had taken Seringapatam and killed Tippoo, [...] we must either have given that capital to the Marattas (a dangerous boon) or have set up some miserable pageant of our own, to be supported by the Company's troops and treasures, and to be plundered by its servants." The territories taken deprived Mysore of much of its coastline; Mysore was also obligated to pay some of the allied war costs. On 18 March 1792 Tipu agreed to the terms and signed the Treaty of Seringapatam, ending hostilities.

## Departure

The difficulties of the military campaigns took a great physical toll on Cornwallis, and he sought to return to England. John Shore, his replacement, did not arrive until March 1793, and Cornwallis remained until August to assist in the transition. He also oversaw the capture of the French outpost at Pondicherry following the arrival of news that war had again broken out in Europe. On 14 August 1793, without ceremony, he quietly sailed from Calcutta for Madras, and on 10 October he finally sailed for England on board the Swallow.

## After India

Scholar P.J. Marshall explains that the British public were able to follow the Third Mysore War in newspapers "in much greater detail than would have been the case for any previous war in India." Thus, when Cornwallis returned victorious from India, he was celebrated well beyond parliamentary and company circles. He was raised to Marquess, but was also celebrated publicly through commissioned portraits and statues; published books, songs and poems; and even purchasable medallions and tea trays. This was the first time a military victory in India at the expense of a non-European enemy garnered such public praise. While there would be many more bumps along the way, such widespread enthusiasm marked a turning point towards British acceptance of an overseas empire of conquest.

Cornwallis was immediately asked to return to India. One reform that Cornwallis had been unable to achieve was the harmonisation of pay and rank between the military forces of the company and those of the Crown. Company officers of a given rank were generally paid better than those of a comparable rank in the Crown forces, and proposals to merge their pay scales were met with resistance that bordered on mutiny. The company directors asked Cornwallis to deal with this; he refused.

After serving for several years as the Master of the Ordnance, he was asked by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger to serve as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland as well as its Commander-in-Chief after the Irish Rebellion of 1798 broke out. While the rebellion was mostly put down before his arrival, he oversaw the mopping up of the remaining pockets of rebellion and successfully defeated a French invasion intended to foment further rebellious activity. He then worked to secure the passage by the Irish Parliament of the 1800 Act of Union, which joined the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He resigned his posts when the king refused to support Catholic emancipation, which he viewed as a key element for securing an enduring peace in Ireland.

He was then engaged by the king in diplomatic efforts in Europe. Cornwallis led the British diplomatic team whose negotiations with Napoleon resulted in the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, with Cornwallis signing the treaty on behalf of King George.

## Return to India

In the years since he left India, the company's reach and control over the country had increased significantly, mainly under the governorship of Lord Mornington. Wellesley had decisively defeated Tipu in 1799 and gained control, direct and indirect, over most of southern India. In 1803 the company came into conflict with the Marathas, and Mornington began extending the company's reach further into the northern territories. His liberal spending and aggressive methods for dealing with the Marathas were not appreciated by the company's directors, and following military setbacks in 1804 and allegations of improprieties, the directors decided to replace him.

On 7 January 1805 Cornwallis was again appointed to the positions of Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of India; after a difficult passage he reached Madras on 19 July, and on 30 July he resumed his duties. William Hickey wrote that Cornwallis had become "a wreck of what he had been when formerly in Bengal", and another aide noted that "his constitution was less equal to contend against the effects of this climate". In spite of declining health and mental faculties, Cornwallis began a trip by boat to visit army outposts northwest of Calcutta. On the journey he wrote to General Gerard Lake, then commanding the forces in the war with the Marathas, insisting that peace be made. However, he never received Lake's answer. When Cornwallis reached Ghazipur on 27 September, he was too ill to proceed further, and he died there a week later, on 5 October 1805. He was buried at Ghazipur.

## Legacy

Biographers Franklin and Mary Wickwire note that Cornwallis's attitudes towards governance presaged the idea of responsible government that took hold in the United Kingdom in the 19th century. Later British administrators and the Indian Civil Service adopted his ideas of service by example and service for the overall benefit of the population. Historian Marguerite Wilbur called the era of Cornwallis and Mornington the Golden Age of British rule in India.

Cornwallis's grave at Ghazipur is marked by a mausoleum whose construction was begun in 1809. Memorials were also erected in his honour in Bombay, Madras, and in Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. In Calcutta, when Mornington greatly expanded the government facilities, the Town Hall included a statuary hall. In 1803, a sculpture begun by John Bacon and finished by his son John Bacon, Jr. was erected there in Cornwallis's honour. The sculpture now stands in the Victoria Memorial.

British Army officer in India


Punctuated equilibrium

In evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a theory that proposes that once a species appears in the fossil record, the population will become stable, showing little evolutionary change for most of its geological history. This state of little or no morphological change is called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, the theory proposes that it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation called cladogenesis. Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another.

Punctuated equilibrium is commonly contrasted with phyletic gradualism, the idea that evolution generally occurs uniformly by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages (anagenesis).

In 1972, paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing their theory and called it punctuated equilibria. Their paper built upon Ernst Mayr's model of geographic speciation, I. M. Lerner's theories of developmental and genetic homeostasis, and their own empirical research. Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species.

## History

Punctuated equilibrium originated as a logical consequence of Ernst Mayr's concept of genetic revolutions by allopatric and especially peripatric speciation as applied to the fossil record. Although the sudden appearance of species and its relationship to speciation was proposed and identified by Mayr in 1954, historians of science generally recognize the 1972 Eldredge and Gould paper as the basis of the new paleobiological research program. Punctuated equilibrium differs from Mayr's ideas mainly in that Eldredge and Gould placed considerably greater emphasis on stasis, whereas Mayr was concerned with explaining the morphological discontinuity (or "sudden jumps") found in the fossil record. Mayr later complimented Eldredge and Gould's paper, stating that evolutionary stasis had been "unexpected by most evolutionary biologists" and that punctuated equilibrium "had a major impact on paleontology and evolutionary biology."

A year before their 1972 Eldredge and Gould paper, Niles Eldredge published a paper in the journal Evolution which suggested that gradual evolution was seldom seen in the fossil record and argued that Ernst Mayr's standard mechanism of allopatric speciation might suggest a possible resolution.

The Eldredge and Gould paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in 1971. The symposium focused its attention on how modern microevolutionary studies could revitalize various aspects of paleontology and macroevolution. Tom Schopf, who organized that year's meeting, assigned Gould the topic of speciation. Gould recalls that "Eldredge's 1971 publication [on Paleozoic trilobites] had presented the only new and interesting ideas on the paleontological implications of the subject—so I asked Schopf if we could present the paper jointly." According to Gould "the ideas came mostly from Niles, with yours truly acting as a sounding board and eventual scribe. I coined the term punctuated equilibrium and wrote most of our 1972 paper, but Niles is the proper first author in our pairing of Eldredge and Gould." In his book Time Frames Eldredge recalls that after much discussion the pair "each wrote roughly half. Some of the parts that would seem obviously the work of one of us were actually first penned by the other—I remember for example, writing the section on Gould's snails. Other parts are harder to reconstruct. Gould edited the entire manuscript for better consistency. We sent it in, and Schopf reacted strongly against it—thus signaling the tenor of the reaction it has engendered, though for shifting reasons, down to the present day."

John Wilkins and Gareth Nelson have argued that French architect Pierre Trémaux proposed an "anticipation of the theory of punctuated equilibrium of Gould and Eldredge."

## Evidence from the fossil record

The fossil record includes well documented examples of both phyletic gradualism and punctuational evolution. As such, much debate persists over the prominence of stasis in the fossil record. Before punctuated equilibrium, most evolutionists considered stasis to be rare or unimportant. The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, for example, believed that phyletic gradual evolution (called horotely in his terminology) comprised 90% of evolution. More modern studies, including a meta-analysis examining 58 published studies on speciation patterns in the fossil record showed that 71% of species exhibited stasis, and 63% were associated with punctuated patterns of evolutionary change. According to Michael Benton, "it seems clear then that stasis is common, and that had not been predicted from modern genetic studies." A paramount example of evolutionary stasis is the fern Osmunda claytoniana. Based on paleontological evidence it has remained unchanged, even at the level of fossilized nuclei and chromosomes, for at least 180 million years.

## Theoretical mechanisms

### Punctuational change

When Eldredge and Gould published their 1972 paper, allopatric speciation was considered the "standard" model of speciation. This model was popularized by Ernst Mayr in his 1954 paper "Change of genetic environment and evolution," and his classic volume Animal Species and Evolution (1963).

Allopatric speciation suggests that species with large central populations are stabilized by their large volume and the process of gene flow. New and even beneficial mutations are diluted by the population's large size and are unable to reach fixation, due to such factors as constantly changing environments. If this is the case, then the transformation of whole lineages should be rare, as the fossil record indicates. Smaller populations on the other hand, which are isolated from the parental stock, are decoupled from the homogenizing effects of gene flow. In addition, pressure from natural selection is especially intense, as peripheral isolated populations exist at the outer edges of ecological tolerance. If most evolution happens in these rare instances of allopatric speciation then evidence of gradual evolution in the fossil record should be rare. This hypothesis was alluded to by Mayr in the closing paragraph of his 1954 paper:

> Rapidly evolving peripherally isolated populations may be the place of origin of many evolutionary novelties. Their isolation and comparatively small size may explain phenomena of rapid evolution and lack of documentation in the fossil record, hitherto puzzling to the palaeontologist.

Although punctuated equilibrium generally applies to sexually reproducing organisms, some biologists have applied the model to non-sexual species like viruses, which cannot be stabilized by conventional gene flow. As time went on biologists like Gould moved away from wedding punctuated equilibrium to allopatric speciation, particularly as evidence accumulated in support of other modes of speciation. Gould, for example, was particularly attracted to Douglas Futuyma's work on the importance of reproductive isolating mechanisms.

### Stasis

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the putative causes of stasis. Gould was initially attracted to I. Michael Lerner's theories of developmental and genetic homeostasis. However this hypothesis was rejected over time, as evidence accumulated against it. Other plausible mechanisms which have been suggested include: habitat tracking, stabilizing selection, the Stenseth-Maynard Smith stability hypothesis, constraints imposed by the nature of subdivided populations, normalizing clade selection, and koinophilia.

Evidence for stasis has also been corroborated from the genetics of sibling species, species which are morphologically indistinguishable, but whose proteins have diverged sufficiently to suggest they have been separated for millions of years. Fossil evidence of reproductively isolated extant species of sympatric Olive Shells (Amalda sp.) also confirm morphological stasis in multiple lineages over three million years.

According to Gould, "stasis may emerge as the theory's most important contribution to evolutionary science." Philosopher Kim Sterelny in clarifying the meaning of stasis adds, "In claiming that species typically undergo no further evolutionary change once speciation is complete, they are not claiming that there is no change at all between one generation and the next. Lineages do change. But the change between generations does not accumulate. Instead, over time, the species wobbles about its phenotypic mean. Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch describes this very process."

### Hierarchical evolution

Punctuated equilibrium has also been cited as contributing to the hypothesis that species are Darwinian individuals, and not just classes, thereby providing a stronger framework for a hierarchical theory of evolution.

## Common misconceptions

Much confusion has arisen over what proponents of punctuated equilibrium actually argued, what mechanisms they advocated, how fast the punctuations were, what taxonomic scale their theory applied to, how revolutionary their claims were intended to be, and how punctuated equilibrium related to other ideas like saltationism, quantum evolution, and mass extinction.

### Saltationism

The punctuational nature of punctuated equilibrium has engendered perhaps the most confusion over Eldredge and Gould's theory. Gould's sympathetic treatment of Richard Goldschmidt, the controversial geneticist who advocated the idea of "hopeful monsters," led some biologists to conclude that Gould's punctuations were occurring in single-generation jumps. This interpretation has frequently been used by creationists to characterize the weakness of the paleontological record, and to portray contemporary evolutionary biology as advancing neo-saltationism.

In an often quoted remark, Gould stated,

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists – whether through design or stupidity, I do not know – as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups."

Although there exist some debate over how long the punctuations last, supporters of punctuated equilibrium generally place the figure between 50,000 and 100,000 years.

### Quantum evolution

Quantum evolution was a controversial hypothesis advanced by Columbia University paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, regarded by Gould as "the greatest and most biologically astute paleontologist of the twentieth century." Simpson's conjecture was that according to the geological record, on very rare occasions evolution would proceed very rapidly to form entirely new families, orders, and classes of organisms. This hypothesis differs from punctuated equilibrium in several respects. First, punctuated equilibrium was more modest in scope, in that it was addressing evolution specifically at the species level. Simpson's idea was principally concerned with evolution at higher taxonomic groups. Second, Eldredge and Gould relied upon a different mechanism. Where Simpson relied upon a synergistic interaction between genetic drift and a shift in the adaptive fitness landscape, Eldredge and Gould relied upon ordinary speciation, particularly Ernst Mayr's concept of allopatric speciation. Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, quantum evolution took no position on the issue of stasis. Although Simpson acknowledged the existence of stasis in what he called the bradytelic mode, he considered it (along with rapid evolution) to be unimportant in the larger scope of evolution. In his Major Features of Evolution Simpson stated, "Evolutionary change is so nearly the universal rule that a state of motion is, figuratively, normal in evolving populations. The state of rest, as in bradytely, is the exception and it seems that some restraint or force must be required to maintain it." Despite such differences between the two models, earlier critiques—from such eminent commentators as Sewall Wright as well as Simpson himself—have argued that punctuated equilibrium is little more than quantum evolution relabeled.

### Multiple meanings of gradualism

Punctuated equilibrium is often portrayed to oppose the concept of gradualism, when it is actually a form of gradualism. This is because even though evolutionary change appears instantaneous between geological sedimentary layers, change is still occurring incrementally, with no great change from one generation to the next. To this end, Gould later commented that "Most of our paleontological colleagues missed this insight because they had not studied evolutionary theory and either did not know about allopatric speciation or had not considered its translation to geological time. Our evolutionary colleagues also failed to grasp the implication(s), primarily because they did not think at geological scales".

Richard Dawkins dedicates a chapter in The Blind Watchmaker to correcting, in his view, the wide confusion regarding rates of change. His first point is to argue that phyletic gradualism—understood in the sense that evolution proceeds at a single uniform speed, called "constant speedism" by Dawkins—is a "caricature of Darwinism" and "does not really exist". His second argument, which follows from the first, is that once the caricature of "constant speedism" is dismissed, we are left with one logical alternative, which Dawkins terms "variable speedism". Variable speedism may also be distinguished one of two ways: "discrete variable speedism" and "continuously variable speedism". Eldredge and Gould, proposing that evolution jumps between stability and relative rapidity, are described as "discrete variable speedists", and "in this respect they are genuinely radical." They assert that evolution generally proceeds in bursts, or not at all. "Continuously variable speedists", on the other hand, advance that "evolutionary rates fluctuate continuously from very fast to very slow and stop, with all intermediates. They see no particular reason to emphasize certain speeds more than others. In particular, stasis, to them, is just an extreme case of ultra-slow evolution. To a punctuationist, there is something very special about stasis."

## Criticism

Richard Dawkins regards the apparent gaps represented in the fossil record as documenting migratory events rather than evolutionary events. According to Dawkins, evolution certainly occurred but "probably gradually" elsewhere. However, the punctuational equilibrium model may still be inferred from both the observation of stasis and examples of rapid and episodic speciation events documented in the fossil record.

Dawkins also emphasizes that punctuated equilibrium has been "oversold by some journalists", but partly due to Eldredge and Gould's "later writings". Dawkins contends that the hypothesis "does not deserve a particularly large measure of publicity". It is a "minor gloss," an "interesting but minor wrinkle on the surface of neo-Darwinian theory," and "lies firmly within the neo-Darwinian synthesis".

In his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, philosopher Daniel Dennett is especially critical of Gould's presentation of punctuated equilibrium. Dennett argues that Gould alternated between revolutionary and conservative claims, and that each time Gould made a revolutionary statement—or appeared to do so—he was criticized, and thus retreated to a traditional neo-Darwinian position. Gould responded to Dennett's claims in The New York Review of Books, and in his technical volume The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

English professor Heidi Scott argues that Gould's talent for writing vivid prose, his use of metaphor, and his success in building a popular audience of nonspecialist readers altered the "climate of specialized scientific discourse" favorably in his promotion of punctuated equilibrium. While Gould is celebrated for the color and energy of his prose, as well as his interdisciplinary knowledge, critics such as Scott, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett have concerns that the theory has gained undeserved credence among non-scientists because of Gould's rhetorical skills. Philosopher John Lyne and biologist Henry Howe believed punctuated equilibrium's success has much more to do with the nature of the geological record than the nature of Gould's rhetoric. They state, a "re-analysis of existing fossil data has shown, to the increasing satisfaction of the paleontological community, that Eldredge and Gould were correct in identifying periods of evolutionary stasis which are interrupted by much shorter periods of evolutionary change."

Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers accused Gould of being "something of an intellectual fraud" for using claims that were "well known from the time of Darwin" (that evolution displayed "periods of long stasis interspersed with periods of rapid change") to support distinct but more "grandiose" claims regarding species selection, despite the "rate of species turnover [having] nothing to do with the traits within species—only with the relative frequency of species showing these traits".

Some critics jokingly referred to the theory of punctuated equilibrium as "evolution by jerks", which reportedly prompted punctuationists to describe phyletic gradualism as "evolution by creeps."

## Darwin's theory

The sudden appearance of most species in the geologic record and the lack of evidence of substantial gradual change in most species—from their initial appearance until their extinction—has long been noted, including by Charles Darwin, who appealed to the imperfection of the record as the favored explanation. When presenting his ideas against the prevailing influences of catastrophism and progressive creationism, which envisaged species being supernaturally created at intervals, Darwin needed to forcefully stress the gradual nature of evolution in accordance with the gradualism promoted by his friend Charles Lyell. He privately expressed concern, noting in the margin of his 1844 Essay, "Better begin with this: If species really, after catastrophes, created in showers world over, my theory false."

It is often incorrectly assumed that he insisted that the rate of change must be constant, or nearly so, but even the first edition of On the Origin of Species states that "Species of different genera and classes have not changed at the same rate, or in the same degree. In the oldest tertiary beds a few living shells may still be found in the midst of a multitude of extinct forms... The Silurian Lingula differs but little from the living species of this genus". Lingula is among the few brachiopods surviving today but also known from fossils over 500 million years old. In the fourth edition (1866) of On the Origin of Species Darwin wrote that "the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." Thus punctuationism in general is consistent with Darwin's conception of evolution.

According to early versions of punctuated equilibrium, "peripheral isolates" are considered to be of critical importance for speciation. However, Darwin wrote, "I can by no means agree ... that immigration and isolation are necessary elements. ... Although isolation is of great importance in the production of new species, on the whole I am inclined to believe that largeness of area is still more important, especially for the production of species which shall prove capable of enduring for a long period, and of spreading widely."

The importance of isolation in forming species had played a significant part in Darwin's early thinking, as shown in his Essay of 1844. But by the time he wrote the Origin he had downplayed its importance. He explained the reasons for his revised view as follows:

> Throughout a great and open area, not only will there be a greater chance of favourable variations, arising from the large number of individuals of the same species there supported, but the conditions of life are much more complex from the large number of already existing species; and if some of these species become modified and improved, others will have to be improved in a corresponding degree, or they will be exterminated. Each new form, also, as soon as it has been improved, will be able to spread over the open and continuous area, and will thus come into competition with many other forms ... the new forms produced on large areas, which have already been victorious over many competitors, will be those that will spread most widely, and will give rise to the greatest number of new varieties and species. They will thus play a more important role in the changing history of the organic world.

Thus punctuated equilibrium is incongruous with some of Darwin's ideas regarding the specific mechanisms of evolution, but generally accords with Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

## Supplemental modes of rapid evolution

Recent work in developmental biology has identified dynamical and physical mechanisms of tissue morphogenesis that may underlie abrupt morphological transitions during evolution. Consequently, consideration of mechanisms of phylogenetic change that have been found in reality to be non-gradual is increasingly common in the field of evolutionary developmental biology, particularly in studies of the origin of morphological novelty. A description of such mechanisms can be found in the multi-authored volume Origination of Organismal Form (MIT Press; 2003).

## Language change

In linguistics, R. M. W. Dixon has proposed a punctuated equilibrium model for language histories, with reference particularly to the prehistory of the indigenous languages of Australia and his objections to the proposed Pama–Nyungan language family there. Although his model has raised considerable interest, it does not command majority support within linguistics.

Separately, recent work using computational phylogenetic methods claims to show that punctuational bursts play an important factor when languages split from one another, accounting for anywhere from 10 to 33% of the total divergence in vocabulary.

## Mythology

Punctuational evolution has been argued to explain changes in folktales and mythology over time.

## See also

Theory in evolutionary biology