rated much higher, but had been blended under one confused and almost unintelligible title of Expenses of the Districts; so joined, perhaps, to afford pleas and means of secreting and appropriating great part of the revenues to other purposes than fairly appeared; and certainly betraying the utmost neglect and mismanagement, as giving latitude for every species of fraud and oppression. Such a system has, in the few latter years of the nabob's necessities, brought all his countries into that situation, from which nothing but the most rigid economy, strict observance of the conduct of managers, and the most conciliating attention to the rights of the inhabitants can possibly recover them.

It now only remains for us to lay before your lordship, &c. the inclosed statement of the sums at which the districts lately advertised have been let, compared with the accounts of their produce delivered by the nabob, and entered on our proceedings of the 21st January. Likewise a comparative view of the former and present expenses.

The nabob's accounts of the produce of these districts state, as we have some reason to think, the sums which former renters engaged to pay to him (and which were seldom, if ever, made good) and not the sums actually produced by the districts; yet we have the satisfaction to observe, that the present aggregate rents, upon an average, are equal to those accounts. Your lordship, &c. cannot indeed expect, that, in the midst of the danger, invasion, and distress, which assail the Carnatic on every side, the

renters now appointed will be able at present to fulfil the terms of their leases; but we trust, from the measures we have taken, that very little, if any, of the actual collections will be lost, even during the war; and that on the return of peace and tranquillity, the renters will have it in their power fully to perform their respective agreements.

We much regret that the situation of the Arcot province will not admit of the same settlement which has been made for the other districts; but the enemy being in possession of the capital, together with several other strong holds, and having entirely desolated the country, there is little room to hope for more from it, than a bare subsistence to the few garrisons we have left there.

We shall not fail to give our attention towards obtaining every information respecting this province, that the present times will permit; and to take the first opportunity to propose such arrangements for the management as we may think eligible.

We have the honour to be

Your most obedient
Humble servants,

CHARLES OAKLEY,
EYLES IRWIN,
HALL PLUMER,

DAVID HALIBURTON,

GEORGE MOUBRAY.

Fort St. George, 27th May, 1782.

A true copy,

J. Hudleston, Sec.

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT of the Revenues and Expenses of the Nellore, Ongole, Patnaud, Trichinopoly, Madura, and Tennevelly Countries, while in the Hands of the Nabob, with those of the same Countries on the Terms of the Leases lately granted for Four Years to commence with the beginning of the Phazely 1192, or the 12th July, 1782. Abstracted from the Accounts received from the Nabob, and from the Rents stipulated for, and Expenses allowed by the present Leases.

Expenses.

Net Revenue.

Reduction in Net Revenue

Accounts.

Leases.

penses allowed the annual Ex-by the Nabob's by the present Net Revenue. by the present penses. Leases at an Estimate.

Signed

CHARLES OAKLEY,
EYLES IRWIN,
HALL PLUMER,

DAVID HALIBURTON, GEO. MOUBRAY.

APPENDIX, No. 5.

Referred to from p. 404.

Case of certain Persons renting the assigned Lands under the authority of the East India Company.

Extract of a Letter from the President and Council of Fort St. George, 25th May, 1783.

"ONE of them [the renters] Ram Chunder Raus, was indeed one of those unfortunate rajahs, whose country, by being near to the territories of the nubob, forfeited its title to independence; and became the prey of ambition and cupidity. This man, though not able to resist the company's arms, employed in such a deed at the nabob's instigation, had industry and ability. He acquired, by a series of services, even the confidence of the nabob; who suffered him to rent a part of the country of which he had deprived him of the property. This man had afforded no motive for his rejection by the nabob, but that of being ready to engage with the company; a motive most powerful indeed, but not to be avowed."

[This is the person whom the English instruments of the nabob of Arcot have had the audacity to charge with a corrupt transaction with Lord Macartney; and, in support of that charge, to produce a forged letter from his lordship's steward. The charge and letter the reader may see in this appendix, under the proper head. It is asserted, by the unfortunate prince above mentioned, that the company first

settled on the coast of Coromandel under the protection of one of his ancestors. If this be true (and it is far from unlikely) the world must judge of the return the descendant has met with. The case of another of the victims, given up by the ministry, though not altogether so striking as the former, is worthy of attention. It is that of the renter of the province of Nellore.]

"It is with a wantonness of falsehood, and indifference to detection, asserted to you, in proof of the validity of the nabob's objections, that this man's failures had already forced us to remove him; though in fact he has continued invariably in office; though our greatest supplies have been received from him; and that, in the disappointment of your remittances [the remittances from Bengal] and of other resources, the species sent us from Nellore alone has sometimes enabled us to carry on the public business; and that the present expedition against the French must, without this assistance from the assignment, have been laid aside, or delayed until it might have become too late."

['This man is by the ministry given over to the mercy of persons capable of making charges on him," with a wantonness of falsehood, and indifference to detection." What is likely to happen to him and the rest of the victims, may appear by the following]

Letter to the Governour General and Council, March 13th, 1782.

"THE speedy termination to which the people were taught to look, of the company's interference in the revenues, and the vengeance denounced against those who, contrary to the mandate of the durbar, should be connected with them, as reported by Mr. Sulivan, may, as much as the former exactions and oppressions of the nabob in the revenue, as reported by the commander in chief, have deterred some of the fittest men from offering to be concerned in it.

"The timid disposition of the Hindoo natives of this country was not likely to be insensible to the specimen of that vengeance given by his excellency the amur, who, upon the mere rumour that a Bramin, of the name of Appagee Row, had given proposals to the company for the rentership of Vellore, had the temerity to send for him, and to put him in confinement.

"A man thus seized by the nabob's seapoys within the walls of Madras, gave a general alarm; and government found it necessary to promise the protection of the company, in order to calm the apprehensions of the people."

APPENDIX, No. 6. p. 404.

Referred to from

Extract of a Letter from the Council and Select Committee at Fort St. George, to the Governour General and Council, dated 25th May, 1783.

In the prosecution of our duty, we beseech you to consider as an act of strict and necessary justice, previous to reiteration of your orders for the surrender of the assignment, how far it would be likely to affect third persons, who do not appear to have committed any breach of their engagements. You command us to compel our aumils to deliver over their respective charges as shall be appointed by the nabob, or to retain their trust under his sole authority, if he shall choose to confirm them. These aumils are really renters, they were appointed in the room of the nabob's

aumils, and contrary to his wishes; they have already been rejected by him, and are therefore not likely to be confirmed by him. They applied to this government, in consequence of public advertisements in our name, as possessing in this instance the joint authority of the nabob and the company, and have entered into mutual and strict covenants with us, and we with them, relative to the certain districts not actually in the possession of the enemy; by which covenants, as they are bound to the punctual payment of their rents, and due management of the country, so we, and our constituents, and the public faith, are in like manner bound to maintain them in the enjoyment of their leases, during the continuance of the term; that term was for five years agreeably to the words of the assignment, which declare that the time of renting shall be for three or five years, as the governour shall settle with the renters.-Their leases cannot be legally torn from them. Nothing but their previous breach of a part could justify our breach of the whole; such a stretch and abuse of power would indeed not only savour of the assumption of sovereignty, but of arbitrary and oppressive despotism. In the present contest, whether the nabob be guilty, or we be guilty, the renters are not guilty. Whichever of the contending parties has broken the condition of the assignment, the renters have not broken the condition of their leases. These men, in conducting the business of the assignment, have acted in opposition to the designs of the nabob, in despite of the menaces denounced against all who should dare to oppose the mandates of the durbar justice. Gratitude and humanity require that provision should be made by you, before you set the nabob's ministers loose on the country, for the protection of the victims devoted to their vengeance.

Mr. Benfield, to secure the permanency of his power, and the perfection of his schemes, thought it necessary to render the nabob an absolute stranger to the state of his affairs. He assured his highness, that full justice was not done to the strength of his sentiments, and the keenness of his attacks, in the translations that were made by the company's servants from the original Persian of his letters. He therefore proposed to him, that they should for the future be transmitted in English. Of the English language or writing his highness, or the ameer, cannot read one word, though the latter can converse in it with sufficient fluency. The Persian language, as the language of the Mahomedan conquerours, and of the court of Delhi, as an appendage or signal

To

of authority, was at all times particularly affected by the nabob:-it is the language of all acts of state, and all public transactions, among the mussulman chiefs of Hindostan. The nabob thought to have gained no inconsiderable point, in procuring the correspondence from our predecessors to the rajah of Tanjore to be changed from the Maratta language, which that Hindoo prince understands, to the Persian, which disclaims understanding. force the rajah to the nabob's language, was gratifying the latter with a new species of subserviency. He had formerly contended with considerable anxiety, and it was thought no inconsiderable cost, for particular forms of address to be used towards him in that language. But all of a sudden, in favour of Mr. Benfield, he quits his former affections, his habits, his knowledge, his curiosity, the increasing mistrust of age, to throw himself upon the generous candour, the faithful interpretation, the grateful return and eloquent organ of Mr. Benfield!-Mr. Benfield relates and reads what he pleases to his excellency the Ameer ul Omrah-his excellency communicates with the nabob his father, in the language the latter understands. Through two channels so pure, the truth must arrive at the nabob in perfect refinement; through this double trust, his highness receives whatever impression it may be convenient to make on him: he abandons his signature to whatever paper they tell him contains, in the English language, the sentiments with which they had inspired him. He thus is surrounded on every side. He is totally at their mercy, to believe what is not true, and to subscribe to what he does not mean. There is no system so new, so foreign to his intentions, that they may not pursue in his name, without possibility of detection: for they are cautious of who approach him, and have thought prudent to decline, for him, the visits of the governour, even upon the usual solemn and acceptable occasion of delivering to his highness the company's letters. Such is the complete ascendency gained by Mr. Benfield. It may be partly explained by the facts observed already some years ago by Mr. Benfield himself in regard to the nabob, of the infirmities natural to his advanced age, joined to the decays of his constitution. To this ascendency, in proportion as it grew, must chiefly be ascribed, if not the origin, at least the continuance and increase, of the nabob's disunion with this presidency; a disunion which creates the importance, and subserves the resentments of Mr. Benfield; and an ascendency which, if you effect the surrender of the assignment, will entirely leave the exercise

of power, and accumulation of fortune, at his boundless discretion; to him, and to the Ameerul-Omrah, and to Syed Assam Cawn, the ass signment would in fact be surrendered. HE WILL (IF ANY) BE THE SOUCAR SECURITY; and security in this country is countersecured by possession. You would not choose to take the assignment from the company, to give it to individuals. Of the impropriety of its returning to the nabob, Mr. Benfield would now again argue from his former observations, that under his highness's management, his country declined, his people emigrated, his revenues decreased, and his country was rapidly approaching to a state of political insolvency. Of Syed Assam Cawn, we judge only from the observations this letter already contains. But of the other two persons [Ameerul-Omrah and Mr. Benfield] we undertake to declare, not as parties in a cause, or even as voluntary witnesses, but as executive officers, reporting to you, in the discharge of our duty, and under the impression of the sacred obligation which binds us to truth, as well as to justice, that, from every observation of their principles and dispositions, and every information of their character and conduct, they have prosecuted projects to the injury and danger of company and individuals; that it would be improper to trust, and dangerous to employ them, in any public or important situation; that the tranquillity of the Carnatic requires a restraint to the power of the ameer; and that the company, whose service and protection Mr. Benfield has repeatedly and recently forfeited, would be more secure against danger and confusion, if he were removed from their several presidencies. [After the above solemn declaration from so weighty an authority, the principal object of that awful and deliberate warning, instead of "being removed from the several presidencies," is licensed to return to one of the principal of those presidencies, and the grand theatre of the operations on account of which the presidency recommends his total removal. The reason given is for the accommodation of that very debt which has been the chief instrument of his dangerous practices, and the main cause of all the confusions in the company's government.]

the

APPENDIX, No. 7.

Referred to from p. 406, and p. 408.

Extracts from the Evidence of Mr. Petrie, late Resident for the Company at Tanjore, given

to the Select Committee, relative to the Reve nues and State of the Country, Sc. &c.

9th May, 1782.

WILLIAM PETRIE, Esq. attending according to order, was asked, In what station he was in the company's service? he said, He went to India in the year 1765, a writer upon the Madras establishment; he was employed, during the former war with Hyder Ali, in the capacity of paymaster and commissary to part of the army, and was afterwards paymaster and commissary to the army in the first siege of Tanjore, and the subsequent campaigns; then secretary to the secret department from 1772 to 1775; he came to England in 1775, and returned again to Madras the beginning of 1778; he was resident at the durbar of the rajah of Tanjore from that time to the month of May; and from that time to January 1780 was chief of Nagore and Carrecal, the first of which was received from the rajah of Tanjore, and the second was taken from the French.-Being asked, Who sent him to Tanjore? he said, Sir Thomas Rumbold, and the Secret Committee.Being then asked, Upon what errand? he said, He went first up with a letter from the company to the rajah of Tanjore; he was directed to give the rajah the strongest assurances that he should be kept in possession of his country, and every privilege to which he had been restored; he was likewise directed to negotiate with the rajah of Tanjore for the cession of the seaport and district of Nagore, in lieu of the town and district of Devicotta, which he had promised to Lord Pigot: these were the principal, and to the best of his recollection at present the only objects in view, when he was first sent up to Tanjore. In the course of his stay at Tanjore other matters of business occurred between the company and the rajah, which came under his management as resident at that durbar. Being asked, Whether the rajah did deliver up to him the town and the annexed districts of Nagore voluntarily, or whether he was forced to it? he said, When he made the first proposition to the rajah, agreeable to the directions he had received from the secret committee at Madras, in the most free, open, liberal manner, the rajah told him the seaport of Nagore was entirely at the service of his benefactors the company, and that he was happy in having that opportunity of testifying his gratitude to them; these may be supposed to be words of course, but from every experi ence which he had of the rajah's mind and conduct, whilst he was at Tanjore, he has rea

and