CORNWALLIS – A NEW BEGINNING

When, in September 1786, Charles, 2nd Earl Cornwallis arrived in Calcutta as governor-general, a new period opened in the political and imperial relationship between England and India. In a new way the people of England declared their sense of responsibility for the sixty million or so of Indians who had come under their sway. In the same year, 1786, the arrival in Calcutta of the Reverend David Brown, the first of the ‘pious chaplains’, marked the beginning of a new phase in the Christian invasion of India. From that date on, there was to be a great expansion of Christian missionary work. Before long the efforts of English-speaking Christians were to equal and then to surpass those of both the Roman Catholics and the Protestant churches of the continent of Europe.

Rulers and missionaries had many interests in common. Those of both wings shared in a deep sense of concern for the well-being and prosperity of the peoples of India. All were at one in the conviction that progress towards well-being would be impossible without just, rational and efficient government. To these the Christians added the conviction that no other force for improvement could equal in effectiveness the diffusion of Christian knowledge and Christian practice among the peoples of India. This was a principle which the government, whatever the personal views of its members, could not officially share.

On the whole the two groups as far as possible kept out of one another's way.