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.

Shall

"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. 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 worship 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 lordship, in the appointment of renters, totally disqualified, rapacious, and irresponsible, who are actually embezzling and dissipating the public revenues that should assist in the support of the war. Totally occupied by his private views, and governed by his passions, he has neglected or sacrificed all the essential objects of public good, and by want of coöperation 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 institutes 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 Ameer-ul-Omrah, in order to create embarrassment, 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 applica

tions to me, to smother my feelings, and entreaties to write in his lordship'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 assert, shall be effectual to confirm his usurpation, and to deprive me and my family, in succession, of my rights of sovereignty and government for ever. To such a length have his passions and violences carried him, that all my family, my dependants, and even my friends and visiters, 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 lordship took occasion to shew a personal derision and contempt of me. Mr. Richard Sullivan, 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 lordship'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 coöperation with any that wish well to the public interests; to a man who, to pursue his own passions, 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 lacks 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 assertions, 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 mal-administration 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, ninety thousand pagodas; but lord Macartney upon receiving a sum of money from Ram. chundry, let it out to him, in April last, for the inadequate rent of 50,000 pagodas per annum, diminishing, 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 quantity 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 Jan. 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 lordship's designs are corroborated by his sending, on the 10th instant, two gentlemen to me and my son Ameer-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 lordship's judgment and discretion, and upon his representations, and that if I, and my son, Ameer-ul-Omrah, would enter into friendship with lord Macartney, and sign a paper, declaring all my charges and complaints against him to be false, that his lordship 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 still be restored to me.

"What must be your feelings for your ancient and faithful