ried on greatly to the detriment and expense of the nabob, and merely to the advantage of individuals. We therefore direct, that all persons who shall offend against the letter and spirit of this necessary order, whether in the company's service, or under their protection, be forthwith sent to England. Approved by the Board.

HENRY DUNDAS,
WALSINGHAM,

W. W. GRENVILLE,
MULGRAVE.

Whitehall, 15th Oct. 1784.

Extract from the Representation of the Court of Directors of the East India Company.

My Lords and Gentlemen,

Ir is with extreme concern that we express a difference of opinion with your right honorable board, in this early exercise of your controlling power; but in so novel an institution, it can scarce be thought extraordinary, if the exact boundaries of our respective functions and duties should not at once, on either side, be precisely and familiarly understood, and therefore confide in your justice and candor for believing that we have no wish to evade or frustrate the salutary purposes of your institution, as we on our part are thoroughly satisfied that you have no wish to encroach on the legal powers of the East India Company: we shall proceed to state our objections to such of the amendments as appear to us to be either insufficient, inexpedient, or unwarranted.

6th. Concerning the private debts of the Nabob of Arcot, and the application of the fund of twelve lacks of pagodas per annum.

Under this head you are pleased, in lieu of our paragraphs, to substantiate at once the justice of all those demands which the act requires us to investigate, subject only to a right reserved to the nabob, or any other party concerned, to question the justice of any debt falling within the last of the three

classes; we submit, that at least the opportunity of questioning, within the limited time, the justice of any of the debts, ought to have been fully preserved; and supposing the first and second classes to stand free from imputation (as we incline to believe they do) no injury can result to individuals from such discussion: and we further submit to your consideration, how far the express direction of the act to examine the nature and origin of the debts has been, by the amended paragraphs, complied with; and whether at least the rate of interest, according to which the debts arising from soucar assignment of the land revenues to the servants of the company, acting in the capacity of native bankers, have been accumulated, ought not to be inquired into, as well as the reasonableness of the deduction of 25 per cent. which the Bengal government directed to be made from a great part of the debts on certain conditions. But to your appropriation of the fund, our duty requires that we should state our strongest dissent. Our right to be paid the arrears of those expenses, by which, almost to our own ruin, we have preserved the country, and all the property connected with it, from falling a prey to a foreign conqueror, surely stands paramount to all claims for former debts upon the revenues of a country so preserved, even if the legislature had not expressly limited the assistance to be given the private creditors to be such as should be consistent with our own rights. The nabob had, long before passing the act, by treaty with our Bengal government, agreed to pay us seven lacks of pagodas, as part of the twelve lacks, in liquidation of those arrears, of which seven lacks the arrangement you have been pleased to lay down would take away from us more than the half, and give it to private creditors, of whose demands there are only about a sixth part which do not stand in a predicament that you declare would not entitle them to any aid or protection from us in the recovery thereof, were it not upon grounds of expediency, as will more particularly appear by the annexed estimate. Until our debt shall be discharged, we can by no means consent to give up any part of the seven lacks to the private creditors; and

we humbly apprehend, that in this declaration we do not exceed the limits of the authority and rights vested in us.

The Right Honorable the Commissioners for the Affairs of India. The REPRESENTATION of the Court of Directors of the East India Company.

My Lords and Gentlemen,

THE Court having duly attended to your reasonings and decisions, on the subjects of Arnee and Hanamantagoody, beg leave to observe, with due deference to your judgment, that the directions we had given in these paragraphs, which did not obtain your approbation, still appear to us to have been consistent with justice, and agreeable to the late act of parliament, which pointed out to us, as we apprehended, the treaty of 1762 as our guide. Signed by order of the said court, THO. MORTON, Sec.

East India House, 3d Nov. 1784.

Extract of a letter from the Commissioners for the affairs of India, to the Court of Directors, dated 3d November, 1784, in answer to their Remonstrance.

SIXTH ARTICLE.

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 discharge of the nabob's debts.

1st. You compute the revenue which the Carnatic may be expected to produce only at twenty lacks of pagodas. 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.

2dly. 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.

3dly. 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 lacks will be larger than it appears on your estimate. But even on your own statement of it, if we add to the £150,000 or 375,000 pagodas (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 pagodas 35,00,000, the amount of pagodas 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 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 reestablishing 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 class 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 lacks, had they been paid.

No. 10.

Referred to from p. 488.

[THE following extracts are subjoined, to shew 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 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