In the course of the same year he landed in England, after an absence of about ten years. His reception was most flattering. He was warmly welcomed by his parents and many near relations: the Court of Directors voted him a sword set with diamonds of the value of five hundred pounds, "as a token of their esteem, and of their sense of his singular services to the Company on the coast of Coromandel[69];" and in society he was honoured with those elevating marks of regard, which always attend a fortunate soldier. Though but a short time in his native country, he appears to have imbibed, or rather renewed, an attachment to it, and to have formed friendships and connections, which left him without any tie in India, but the fulfilment of the public duties he had to perform in that country, and the acquirement of sufficient fortune to maintain himself and family. He had not enjoyed himself two years in England, when the state of affairs in India made the Court of Directors anxious for his presence in that country. He was appointed Governor of Fort St. David, with a provisional commission to succeed to the government of Madras; and the appointment was accompanied with the expression of their anxious desire that he should return as soon as possible to a country in which they deemed his services of the greatest importance. To obviate the quarrels about rank between the King's and Company's officers, which had often been attended with much obstruction to the service, the Directors applied to His Majesty's government, and obtained for him the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel in the British army; a very honourable distinction, as he was then but a young man, and only a Captain in their service.