The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume III Part 10

We think it proper, considering the particular nature of the subject, to state to you the following remarks on that part of your representation which relates to the plan for the discharging of the Nabob's debts.

1st. You compute the revenue which the Carnatic may be expected to produce only at twenty lacs of paG.o.das. If we concurred with you in this opinion, we should certainly feel our hopes of advantage to all the parties from this arrangement considerably diminished. But we trust that we are not too sanguine on this head, when we place the greatest reliance on the estimate transmitted to you by your President of Fort St. George, having there the best means of information upon the fact, and stating it with a particular view to the subject matter of these paragraphs. Some allowance, we are sensible, must be made for the difference of collection in the Nabob's hands, but, we trust, not such as to reduce the receipt nearly to what you suppose.

2ndly. In making up the amount of the private debts, you take in compound interest at the different rates specified in our paragraph.

This it was not our intention to allow; and lest any misconception should arise on the spot, we have added an express direction that the debts be made up with simple interest only, from the time of their respective consolidation. Clause F f.

3rdly. We have also the strongest grounds to believe that the debts will be in other respects considerably less than they are now computed by you; and consequently, the Company's annual proportion of the twelve lacs will be larger than it appears on your estimate. But even on your own statement of it, if we add to the 150,000_l._, or 3,75,000 paG.o.das, (which you take as the annual proportion to be received by the Company for five years to the end of 1789,) the annual amount of the Tanjore peshcush for the same period, and the arrears on the peshcush, (proposed by Lord Macartney to be received in three years,) the whole will make a sum not falling very short of paG.o.das 35,00,000, the amount of paG.o.das 7,00,000 per annum for the same period. And if we carry our calculations farther, it will appear, that, both by the plan proposed by the Nabob and adopted in your paragraphs, and by that which we transmitted to you, the debt from the Nabob, if taken at 3,000,000_l._, will be discharged nearly at the same period, viz., in the course of the eleventh year. We cannot, therefore, be of opinion that there is the smallest ground for objecting to this arrangement, as injurious to the interests of the Company, even if the measure were to be considered on the mere ground of expediency, and with a view only to the wisdom of reestablis.h.i.+ng credit and circulation in a commercial settlement, without any consideration of those motives of attention to the feelings and honor of the Nabob, of humanity to individuals, and of justice to persons in your service and living under your protection, which have actuated the legislature, and which afford not only justifiable, but commendable grounds for your conduct.

Impressed with this conviction, we have not made any alteration in the general outlines of the arrangement which we had before transmitted to you. But, as the amount of the Nabob's revenue is matter of uncertain conjecture, and as it does not appear just to us that any deficiency should fall wholly on any one cla.s.s of these debts, we have added a direction to your government of Fort St. George, that, if, notwithstanding the provisions contained in our former paragraphs, any deficiency should arise, the payments of what shall be received shall be made in the same proportion which would have obtained in the division of the whole twelve lacs, had they been paid.

No. 10.

Referred to from p. 103.

[The following extracts are subjoined, to show the matter and the style of representation employed by those who have obtained that ascendency over the Nabob of Arcot which is described in the letter marked No. 6 of the present Appendix, and which is so totally destructive of the authority and credit of the lawful British government at Madras. The charges made by these persons have been solemnly denied by Lord Macartney; and to judge from the character of the parties accused and accusing, they are probably void of all foundation. But as the letters are in the name and under the signature of a person of great rank and consequence among the natives,--as they contain matter of the most serious nature,--as they charge the most enormous crimes, and corruptions of the grossest kind, on a British governor,--and as they refer to the Nabob's minister in Great Britain for proof and further elucidation of the matters complained of,--common decency and common policy demanded an inquiry into their truth or falsehood. The writing is obviously the product of some English pen. If, on inquiry, these charges should be made good, (a thing very unlikely,) the party accused would become a just object of animadversion. If they should be found (as in all probability they would be found) false and calumnious, and supported by _forgery_, then the censure would fall on the accuser; at the same time the necessity would be manifest for proper measures towards the security of government against such infamous accusations. It is as necessary to protect the honest fame of virtuous governors as it is to punish the corrupt and tyrannical. But neither the Court of Directors nor the Board of Control have made any inquiry into the truth or falsehood of these charges. They have covered over the accusers and accused with abundance of compliments; they have insinuated some oblique censures; and they have recommended perfect harmony between the chargers of corruption and peculation and the persons charged with these crimes.]

13th October, 1782. _Extract of a Translation of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company_.

Fatally for me, and for the public interest, the Company's favor and my unbounded confidence have been lavished on a man totally unfit for the exalted station in which he has been placed, and unworthy of the trusts that have been reposed in him. When I speak of one who has so deeply stabbed my honor, my wounds bleed afresh, and I must be allowed that freedom of expression which the galling reflection of my injuries and my misfortunes naturally draws from me. Shall your servants, unchecked, unrestrained, and unpunished, gratify their private views and ambition at the expense of my honor, my peace, and my happiness, and to the ruin of my country, as well as of all your affairs? No sooner had Lord Macartney obtained the favorite object of his ambition than he betrayed the greatest insolence towards me, the most glaring neglect of the common civilities and attentions paid me by all former governors in the worst of times, and even by the most inveterate of my enemies. He insulted my servants, endeavored to defame my character by unjustly censuring my administration, and extended his boundless usurpation to the whole government of my dominions, in all the branches of judicature and police; and, in violation of the express articles of the agreements, proceeded to send renters into the countries, unapproved of by me, men of bad character, and unequal to my management or responsibility.

Though he is chargeable with the greatest acts of cruelty, even to the shedding the blood and cutting off the noses and ears of my subjects, by those exercising his authority in the countries, and that even the duties of religion and public wors.h.i.+p have been interrupted or prevented, and though he carries on all his business by the arbitrary exertion of military force, yet does he not collect from the countries one fourth of the revenue that should be produced. The statement he pretends to hold forth of expected revenue is totally fallacious, and can never be realized under the management of his Lords.h.i.+p, in the appointment of renters totally disqualified, rapacious, and irresponsible, who are actually embezzling and dissipating the public revenues that should a.s.sist in the support of the war. Totally occupied by his private views, and governed by his pa.s.sions, he has neglected or sacrificed all the essential objects of public good, and by want of cooperation with Sir Eyre Coote, and refusal to furnish the army with the necessary supplies, has rendered the glorious and repeated victories of the gallant general ineffectual to the expulsion of our cruel enemy.

To cover his insufficiency, and veil the discredit attendant on his failure in every measure, he throws out the most illiberal expressions, and inst.i.tutes unjust accusations against me; and in aggravation of all the distresses imposed upon me, he has abetted the meanest calumniators to bring forward false charges against me and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, in order to create embarra.s.sment, and for the distress of my mind. My papers and writings sent to you must testify to the whole world the malevolence of his designs, and the means that have been used to forward them. He has violently seized and opened all letters addressed to me and my servants, on my public and private affairs. My vackeel, that attended him according to ancient custom, has been ignominiously dismissed from his presence, and not suffered to approach the Government-House. He has in the meanest manner, and as he thought in secret, been tampering and intriguing with my family and relations for the worst of purposes. And if I express the agonies of my mind under these most pointed injuries and oppressions, and complain of the violence and injustice of Lord Macartney, I am insulted by his affected construction that my communications are dictated by the insinuations of others, at the same time that his conscious apprehensions for his misconduct have produced the most abject applications to me to smother my feelings, and entreaties to write in his Lords.h.i.+p's favor to England, and to submit all my affairs to his direction. When his submissions have failed to mould me to his will, he has endeavored to effect his purposes by menaces of his secret influence with those in power in England, which he pretends to a.s.sert shall be effectual to confirm his usurpation, and to deprive me, and my family, in succession, of my rights of sovereignty and government forever. To such a length have his pa.s.sions and violences carried him, that all my family, my dependants, and even my friends and visitors, are persecuted with the strongest marks of his displeasure.

Every shadow of authority in my person is taken from me, and respect to my name discouraged throughout the whole country. When an officer of high rank in his Majesty's service was some time since introduced to me by Lord Macartney, his Lords.h.i.+p took occasion to show a personal derision and contempt of me. Mr. Richard Sulivan, who has attended my durbar under the commission of the Governor-General and Council of Bengal, has experienced his resentment; and Mr. Benfield, _with whom I have no business_, and who, as he has been accustomed to do for many years, has continued to pay me his visits of respect, has felt the weight of his Lords.h.i.+p's displeasure, and has had every unmerited insinuation thrown out against him, to prejudice him, and deter him from paying me his compliments as usual.

Thus, Gentlemen, have you delivered me over to a stranger; to a man unacquainted with government and business, and too opinionated to learn; to a man whose ignorance and prejudices operate to the neglect of every good measure, or the liberal cooperation with any that wish well to the public interests; to a man who, to pursue his own pa.s.sions, plans, and designs, will certainly ruin all mine, as well as the Company's affairs.

His mismanagement and obstinacy have caused the loss of many lacs of my revenues, dissipated and embezzled, and every public consideration sacrificed to his vanity and private views. I beg to offer an instance in proof of my a.s.sertions, and to justify the hope I have that you will cause to be made good to me all the losses I have sustained by the maladministration and bad practices of your servants, according to all the account of receipts of former years, and which I made known to Lord Macartney, amongst other papers of information, in the beginning of his management in the collections. The district of Ongole produced annually, upon a medium of many years, 90,000 paG.o.das; but Lord Macartney, _upon receiving a sum of money from Ramchundry_[73] let it out to him, in April last, for the inadequate rent of 50,000 paG.o.das per annum, diminis.h.i.+ng, in this district alone, near half the accustomed revenues.

After this manner hath he exercised his powers over the countries, to suit his own purposes and designs; and this secret mode has he taken to reduce the collections.

1st November, 1782. _Copy of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the Court of Directors, &c._ Received 7th April, 1783.

The distresses which I have set forth in my former letters are now increased to such an alarming pitch by the imprudent measures of your Governor, and by the arbitrary and impolitic conduct pursued with the merchants and importers of grain, that the very existence of the Fort of Madras seems at stake, and that of the inhabitants of the settlement appears to have been totally overlooked: many thousands have died, and continue hourly to perish of famine, though the capacity of one of your youngest servants, with diligence and attention, by doing justice, and giving reasonable encouragement to the merchants, and by drawing the supplies of grain which the northern countries would have afforded, might have secured us against all those dreadful calamities. I had with much difficulty procured and purchased a small quant.i.ty of rice, for the use of myself, my family, and attendants, and with a view of sending off the greatest part of the latter to the northern countries, with a little subsistence in their hands. But what must your surprise be, when you learn that even this rice was seized by Lord Macartney, with a military force! and thus am I unable to provide for the few people I have about me, who are driven to such extremity and misery that it gives me pain to behold them. I have desired permission to get a little rice from the northern countries for the subsistence of my people, without its being liable to seizure by your sepoys: this even has been refused me by Lord Macartney. What must your feelings be, on such wanton cruelty exercised towards me, when you consider, that, of thousands of villages belonging to me, a single one would have sufficed for my subsistence!

22d March, 1783. _Translation of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the Chairman and Directors of the East India Company_. Received from Mr.

James Macpherson, 1st January, 1784.

I am willing to attribute this continued usurpation to the fear of detection in Lord Macartney: he dreads the awful day when the scene of his enormities will be laid open, at my restoration to my country, and when the tongues of my oppressed subjects will be unloosed, and proclaim aloud the cruel tyrannies they have sustained. These sentiments of his Lords.h.i.+p's designs are corroborated by his sending, on the 10th instant, two gentlemen to me and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah; and these gentlemen from Lord Macartney especially set forth to me, and to my son, that all dependence on the power of the superior government of Bengal to enforce the intentions of the Company to restore my country was vain and groundless,--that the Company confided in his Lords.h.i.+p's judgment and discretion, and upon his representations, and that if I, and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, would enter into friends.h.i.+p with Lord Macartney, and sign a paper declaring all my charges and complaints against him to be false, that his Lords.h.i.+p might be induced to write to England that all his allegations against me and my son were not well founded, and, notwithstanding his declarations to withhold my country, yet, on these considerations, it might be still restored to me.

What must be your feelings for your ancient and faithful friend, on his receiving such insults to his honor and understanding from your princ.i.p.al servant, armed with your authority! From these manoeuvres, amongst thousands I have experienced, the truth must evidently appear to you, that I have not been loaded with those injuries and oppressions from motives of public service, but to answer the private views and interests of his Lords.h.i.+p and his secret agents: _some papers to this point are inclosed_; others, almost without number, must be submitted to your justice, when time and circ.u.mstances shall enable me fully to investigate those transactions. This opportunity will not permit the full representation of my load of injuries and distresses: I beg leave to refer you to my minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the papers, according to the inclosed list, which accompanied my last dispatches by the Rodney, which I fear have failed; and my correspondence with Lord Macartney subsequent to that period, such as I have been able to prepare for this opportunity, are inclosed.

Notwithstanding all the violent acts and declarations of Lord Macartney, yet a consciousness of his own misconduct was the sole incentive to the menaces and overtures he has held out in various shapes. He has been insultingly lavish in his expressions of high respect for my person; has had the insolence to say that all his measures flowed from his affectionate regard alone; has presumed to say that all his enmity and oppression were levelled at my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, to whom he before acknowledged every aid and a.s.sistance; and his Lords.h.i.+p being without any just cause or foundation for complaint against us, or a veil to cover his own violences, he has now had recourse to the meanness and has dared to intimate of my son, in order to intimidate me and to strengthen his own wicked purposes, to be in league with our enemies the French.

You must doubtless be astonished, no less at the a.s.surance than at the absurdity of such a wicked suggestion.

IN THE NABOB'S OWN HAND.

P.S. In my own handwriting I acquainted Mr. Hastings, as I now do my ancient friends the Company, with the insult offered to my honor and understanding, in the extraordinary propositions sent to me by Lord Macartney, through two gentlemen, on the 10th instant, so artfully veiled with menaces, hopes, and promises. But how can Lord Macartney add to his enormities, after his wicked and calumniating insinuations, so evidently directed against me and my family, through my faithful, my dutiful, and beloved son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who, you well know, has been ever born and bred amongst the English, whom I have studiously brought up in the warmest sentiments of affection and attachment to them,--sentiments that in his maturity have been his highest ambition to improve, insomuch that he knows no happiness but in the faithful support of our alliance and connection with the English nation?

12th August, and Postscript of the 16th August, 1783. _Translation of a Letter to the Chairman and Directors of the East India Company._ Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.

Your astonishment and indignation will be equally raised with mine, when you hear that your President _has dared_, contrary to your intention, to continue to usurp the privileges and hereditary powers of the Nabob of the Carnatic, your old and unshaken friend, and the declared ally of the king of Great Britain.

I will not take up your time by enumerating the particular acts of Lord Macartney's violence, cruelty, and injustice: _they, indeed, occur too frequently, and fall upon me and my devoted subjects and country too thick, to be regularly related_. I refer you to my minister, Mr. James Macpherson, _for a more circ.u.mstantial account of the oppressions and enormities by which he has brought both mine_ and the Company's affairs to the brink of destruction. I trust that such flagrant violations of all justice, honor, and the faith of treaties will receive the severest marks of your displeasure, and that Lord Macartney's conduct, in making use of your name and authority as a sanction for the continuance of his usurpation, will be disclaimed with the utmost indignation, and followed with the severest punishment. I conceive that his Lords.h.i.+p's arbitrary retention of my country and government can only originate in his _insatiable cravings_, in his implacable malevolence against me, and through fear of detection, which must follow the surrender of the Carnatic into my hands, of those nefarious proceedings which are now suppressed by the arm of violence and power.

I did not fail to represent to the supreme government of Bengal the deplorable situation to which I was reduced, and the unmerited persecutions I have unremittingly sustained from Lord Macartney; and I earnestly implored them to stretch forth a saving arm, and interpose that controlling power which was vested in them, to check _rapacity and presumption_, and preserve the honor and faith of the Company from violation. The Governor-General and Council not only felt the cruelty and injustice I had suffered, but were greatly alarmed for the fatal consequences that might result from the distrust of the country powers in the professions of the English, when they saw the Nabob of the Carnatic, the friend of the Company, and the ally of Great Britain, thus stripped of his rights, his dominions, and his dignity, by the most fraudulent means, and under the mask of friends.h.i.+p. The Bengal government had already heard both the Mahrattas and the Nizam urge, as an objection to an alliance with the English, the faithless behavior of Lord Macartney to a prince whose life had been devoted and whose treasures had been exhausted in their service and support; and they did not hesitate to give positive orders to Lord Macartney for the rest.i.tution of my government and authority, on such terms as were not only strictly honorable, but equally advantageous to my friends the Company: for they justly thought that my honor and dignity and _sovereign rights_ were the first objects of my wishes and ambition. But how can I paint my astonishment at Lord Macartney's presumption in continuing his usurpation after their positive and reiterated mandates, and, as if nettled by their interference, which he disdained, in redoubling the fury of his violence, and sacrificing the public and myself to his malice and ungovernable pa.s.sions?

I am, Gentlemen, at a loss to conceive where his usurpation will stop and have an end. Has he not solemnly declared that the a.s.signment was only made for the support of war? and if neither your instructions nor the orders of his superiors at Bengal were to be considered as effectual, has not the treaty of peace virtually determined the period of his tyrannical administration? But so far from surrendering the Carnatic into my hands, he has, since that event, affixed advertis.e.m.e.nts to the walls and gates of the Black Town for letting to the best bidder the various districts for the term of three years,--and has continued the Committee of Revenue, which you positively ordered to be abolished, to whom he has allowed enormous salaries, from 6000 to 4000 paG.o.das per annum, which each member has received from the time of his appointment, though his Lords.h.i.+p well knows that most of them are by your orders disqualified by being my princ.i.p.al creditors.

If those acts of violence and outrage had been productive of public advantage, I conceive his Lords.h.i.+p might have held them forward in extenuation of his conduct; but whilst he cloaks his justification under the veil of your records, it is impossible to refute his a.s.sertions or to expose to you their fallacy; and when he is no longer able to support his conduct by argument, he refers to those records, where, I understand, he has exercised all his sophistry and malicious insinuations to render me and my family obnoxious in the eyes of the Company and the British nation. And when the glorious victories of Sir Eyre Coote have been rendered abortive by a constant deficiency of supplies,--and when, since the departure of that excellent general to Bengal, whose loss I must ever regret, a dreadful famine, at the close of last year, occasioned by his Lords.h.i.+p's neglect to lay up a sufficient stock of grain at a proper season, and from his prohibitory orders to private merchants,--and when no exertion has been made, nor advantage gained over the enemy,--when Hyder's death and Tippoo's return to his own dominions operated in no degree for the benefit of our affairs,--in short, when all has been a continued series of disappointment and disgrace under Lord Macartney's management, (and in him alone has the management been vested,)--I want words to convey those ideas of his insufficiency, ignorance, and obstinacy which I am convinced you would entertain, had you been spectators of his ruinous and destructive conduct.

But against me, and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, has his Lords.h.i.+p's vengeance chiefly been exerted: even the Company's own subordinate zemindars have found better treatment, probably because they were more rich; those of Nizanagoram have been permitted, contrary to your pointed orders, to hold their rich zemindaries at the old disproportionate rate of little more than a sixth part of the real revenue; and my zemindar of Tanjore, though he should have regarded himself equally concerned with us in the event of the war, and from whose fertile country many valuable harvests have been gathered in, which have sold at a vast price, has, I understand, only contributed, last year, towards the public exigencies, the very inconsiderable sum of one lac of paG.o.das, and a few thousand paG.o.das' worth of grain.

I am much concerned to acquaint you that ever since the peace a dreadful famine has swept away many thousands of the followers and sepoys'

families of the army, from Lord Macartney's neglect to send down grain to the camp, though the roads are crowded with vessels: but his Lords.h.i.+p has been too intent upon his own disgraceful schemes to attend to the wants of the army. The negotiation with Tippoo, which he has set on foot through the mediation of Monsieur Bussy, has employed all his thoughts, and to the attainment of that object he will sacrifice the dearest interests of the Company to gratify his malevolence against me, and for his own private advantages. The endeavor to treat with Tippoo, through the means of the French, must strike you, Gentlemen, as highly improper and impolitic; but it must raise your utmost indignation to hear, that, by intercepted letters from Bussy to Tippoo, as well as from their respective vakeels, and from various accounts from Cuddalore, we have every reason to conclude that his Lords.h.i.+p's secretary, Mr. Staunton, when at Cuddalore, as his agent to settle the cessation of arms with the French, was informed of all their operations and projects, and _consequently that Lord Macartney has secretly connived at Monsieur Bussy's recommendation to Tippoo to return into the Carnatic, as the means of procuring the most advantageous terms, and furnis.h.i.+ng Lord Macartney with the plea of necessity for concluding a peace after his own manner_: and what further confirms the truth of this fact is, that repeated reports, as well as the alarms of the inhabitants to the westward, leave us no reason to doubt that Tippoo is approaching towards us. His Lords.h.i.+p has issued public orders that the garrison store of rice, for which we are indebted to the exertions of the Bengal government, should be immediately disposed of, and has strictly forbid all private grain to be sold; by which act he effectually prohibits all private importation of grain, and may eventually cause as horrid a famine as that which we experienced at the close of last year from the same shortsighted policy and destructive prohibitions of Lord Macartney.

But as he has the fabrication of the records in his own hands, he trusts to those partial representations of his character and conduct, because the signatures of those members of government whom he seldom consults are affixed, as a public sanction; but you may form a just idea of their correctness and propriety, when you are informed that his Lords.h.i.+p, _upon my noticing the heavy disburs.e.m.e.nts made for secret service money, ordered the sums to be struck off, and the accounts to be erased from the cash-book of the Company_; and I think I cannot give you a better proof of his management of my country and revenues than by calling your attention to his conduct in the Ongole province, and by referring you to his Lords.h.i.+p's administration of your own jaghire, from whence he has brought to the public account the sum of twelve hundred paG.o.das for the last year's revenue, yet blazons forth his vast merits and exertions, and expects to receive the thanks of his Committee and Council.

I will beg leave to refer you to my minister, James Macpherson, Esq., for a more particular account of my sufferings and miseries, to whom I have transmitted copies of all papers that pa.s.sed with his Lords.h.i.+p.

I cannot conclude without calling your attention to _the situation of my different creditors_, whose claims are the claims of justice, and whose demands I am bound by honor and every moral obligation to discharge; it is not, therefore, without great concern I have heard insinuations tending to question the legality of their right to the payment of those just debts: they proceeded from advances made by them openly and honorably for the support of my own and the public affairs. But I hope the tongue of calumny will never drown the voice of truth and justice; and while that is heard, the wisdom of the English nation cannot fail to accede to an effectual remedy for their distresses, by any arrangement in which their claims may be duly considered and equitably provided for: and for this purpose, my minister, _Mr. Macpherson, will readily subscribe, in my name, to any agreement you may think proper to adopt, founded on the same principles_ with either of the engagements I entered into with the supreme government of Bengal for our mutual interest and advantage.

I always pray for your happiness and prosperity.

6th September, and Postscript of 7th September, 1783. _Translation of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the Chairman and Directors of the East India Company._ Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.

I refer you, Gentlemen, to my inclosed duplicate, as well as to my minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the particulars of my sufferings. There is no word or action of mine that is not perverted; and though it was my intention to have sent my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who is well versed in my affairs, to Bengal, to impress those gentlemen with a full sense of my situation, yet I find myself obliged to lay it aside, from the insinuations of the calumniating tongue of Lord Macartney, that takes every license to traduce every action of my life and that of my son. I am informed that Lord Macartney, at this late moment, intends to write a letter: I am ignorant of the subject, but fully perceive, that, by delaying to send it till the very eve of the dispatch, he means to deprive me of all possibility of communicating my reply, and forwarding it for the information of my friends in England. Conscious of the weak ground on which he stands, he is obliged to have recourse to these artifices to mislead the judgment, and support for a time his unjustifiable measures by deceit and imposition. I wish only to meet and combat his charges and allegations fairly and openly, and I have repeatedly and urgently demanded to be furnished with copies of those parts of his _fabricated_ records relative to myself; but as he well knows I should refute his sophistry, I cannot be surprised at his refusal, though I lament that it prevents you, Gentlemen, from a clear investigation of his conduct towards me.

Inclosed you have a translation of an arzee from the Killidar of Vellore. _I have thousands of the same kind_; but this, just now received, will serve to give you some idea of the miseries brought upon this my devoted country, and the wretched inhabitants that remain in it, by the oppressive hand of Lord Macartney's management: nor will the _embezzlements of collections_ thus obtained, when brought before you in _proof_, appear less extraordinary,--which _shall certainly be done in due time_.

_Translation of an Arzee, in the Persian Language, from Uzzim-ul-Doen Cawn, the Killidar of Vellore, to the Nabob_, dated 1st September, 1783. Inclosed in the Nabob's Letter to the Court of Directors, September, 1783.

I have repeatedly represented to your Highness the violences and oppressions exercised by the present aumildar [collector of revenue], of Lord Macartney's appointment, over the few remaining inhabitants of the districts of Vellore, Amboor, Saulguda, &c.