to vid AS the Appendixes, originally printed with the foregoing Reports, and which consist chiefly of official documents, would have swelled this Volume to an enormous size, it has been thought proper to omit them, with the exception of the first nine numbers of the Appendix B. to the Eleventh Report; the insertion of which has been judged necessary for the elucidation of the subject-matter of that Report.

APPENDIX B. N° 1.

COPY of a Letter from the Governour-General to the Court of Directors.

To the Honourable the Court of Directors of the Honourable United East India Company.

Honourable Sirs,

Fort-William,

29th November, 1780.

OU will be informed, by our Consultations of

You

the 26th of June, of a very unusual tender, which was made by me to the Board on that day, for the purpose of indemnifying the Company for the extraordinary expense, which might be incurred by supplying the Detachment under the command of Major Camac, in the invasion of the Mahratta dominions, which lay beyond the district of Gohed, and drawing the attention of Mahdajee Sindia, to whom that country immediately appertained, from General Goddard, while he was employed in the reduction of Bassein, and in securing the conquests made by your arms in Guzerat.—I was desirous to

remove the only objection, which has been or could be ostensibly made to the measure, which I had very much at heart, as may be easily conceived from the means, which I took to effect it. For the reasons at large, which induced me to propose that diversion, it will be sufficient to refer to my Minute recommending it, and to the letters received from General Goddard near the same period of time. The subject is now become obsolete, and all the fair hopes, which I had built upon the prosecution of the Mahratta war, of its termination in a speedy, honourable, and advantageous peace have been blasted by the dreadful calamities, which have befallen your arms in the Dependencies of your Presidency of Fort Saint George; and changed the object of our pursuit from the aggrandizement of your power to its preservation. My present reason for reverting to my own conduct on the occasion, which I have mentioned, is to obviate the false conclusions, or purposed, misrepresentations, which may be made of it, either as an artifice of ostentation, or as the effect of corrupt influence, by assuring you, that the money, by whatever means it came into your possession, was not my own; that I had myself no right to it, nor would or could have received it, but for the occasion, which prompted me to avail myself of the accidental means, which were at that instant afforded me, of accepting and converting it to the property and use

of

of the Company; and with this brief apology I shall dismiss the subject.

A

Something of affinity to this anecdote may appear in the first aspect of another transaction, which I shall proceed to relate, and of which it is more immediately my duty to inform you;-you will have been advised, by repeated addresses of this Government, of the arrival of an army at Cuttac under the command of Chimnajee Boosla, the se cond son of Moodajee Boosla, the Rajah of Berar

The origin and destination of this force have been largely explained and detailed in the correspondence of the government of Berar, and in various parts of our Consultations. The minute relation of these would exceed the bounds of a letter; I shall therefore confine myself to the principal fact.-About the middle of the last year, a plan of confederacy was formed by the Nabob, Nizam Ally Cawn, by which it was proposed, that, while the army of the Mahrattas, under the command of Mahdajee Sindia and Tuckoojee Hoolkar, was employed to check the operations of General Goddard in the west of India, Hyder Ally Cawn should invade the Carna tic; Moodajee Boosla the provinces of Bengal; and he himself the Sircars of Rajamundry and Chicacole.

The government of Berar was required to accept the part assigned it in this combination, and to march a large body of troops immediately into aloda

Bengal.

Bengal. To enforce the request on the part of the ruling member of the Mahratta state, menaces of instant hostility, by the combined forces, were added by Mahdajee Sindia, Tuckoojee Hoolkar, and Nizam Ally Cawn, in letters written by them to Moodajeen Boosla on the occasion. He was not in a state to sustain the brunt of so formidable a league, and ostensibly yielded. Such at least was the turn, which he gave to his acquiescence, in his letters to me; and his subsequent conduct has justified his professions. I was early and progressively acquainted by him with the requisition, and with the measures, which were intended to be taken, and which were taken by him upon it. The army professedly destined for Bengal marched on the dusserra of the last year, corresponding with the 7th of October. Instead of taking the direct course to Behar, which had been prescribed, it proceeded by varied deviations and studied delays to Cuttac, where it arrived late in May last, having performed a practicable journey of three months in seven, and concluded it at the instant commencement of the rains, which of course would preclude its operations, and afford the government of Berar a further interval of five months to provide for the part, which it would then be compelled to choose. In the mean time letters were continually written by the Rajah and his minister to this Government, expla natory of their situation and motives; proposing