impressionable spirits. His reports to England show a constant struggle
to keep his train of young gentlemen true to their national Church.[171]

The Spanish Court was then at Valladolid, in which city flourished an
especially strong College of Jesuits. Thence Walpole, and other
dangerous persuaders, made sallies upon Cornwallis's fold. At first the
Ambassador was hopeful:--

"Much hath that Creswell and others of that Societie" (the Jesuits)
"bestir'd themselves here in Conference and Persuasion with the
Gentlemen that came to attend his Excellencie[172] and do secretly bragg
of their much prevailinge. Two of myne own Followers I have found
corrupted, the one in such sorte as he refused to come to Prayers, whom
I presently discharged; the other being an honest and sober young
Gentleman, and one that denieth not to be present both at Prayers and
Preachinge, I continue still, having good hope that I shall in time
reduce him."[173]

But within a month he has to report the conversion of Sir Thomas Palmer,
and within another month, the loss of even his own chaplain. "Were God
pleased that onlie young and weak ones did waver, it were more
tollerable," he laments, "but I am put in some doubte of my Chaplaine
himself." He had given the chaplain--one Wadesworth, a good Cambridge
Protestant--leave of absence to visit the University of Salamanca. In a
week the chaplain wrote for a prolongation of his stay, making discourse
of "a strange Tempest that came upon him in the way, of visible Fire
that fell both before and behind him, of an Expectation of present
Death, and of a Vowe he made in that time of Danger." This manner of
writing, and reports from others that he has been a secret visitor to
the College of the Jesuits, make Cornwallis fear the worst. "I should