No. XLV.

The Earl of Mornington to the Secret Committee of the Honourable Court of Directors.

HONOURABLE SIRS,

Fort William, 28th Nov. 1799.

I. According to the latest accounts dated on the 2nd of November, the affairs of Mysore were in the most favourable condition. The whole of the country (including Sondah and the rest of the reserved territory, now about to be divided between the Company and the Nizam) having been completely settled, with the exception of the inconsiderable possessions of the Polygar of Bullam, against whom a small detachment had been sent, the army in Mysore was on the eve of being distributed in garrisons and cantonments.

Under the disadvantages resulting from the recent military operations throughout the country, Purneah had discharged the first monthly kist of the subsidy stipulated by the late treaty of Seringapatam, namely, that for the month of July, and had announced his intention of soon paying the kists for August and September.

I have very great satisfaction in informing your honourable Committee that the measures which I concerted with Lord Clive, previously to my departure from Fort St. George, for the purpose of reducing the southern Polygars to order and legal government have been executed with the greatest ability and success by Major Bannerman, and that the military power of that refractory race of people is now completely extinct.

The settlement of Tanjore has been arranged with the same happy success. Previously to my departure from Fort St. George, with Lord Clive's assistance, I framed the outlines of a new treaty between the Rajah and the Company vesting the entire and exclusive administration, civil and military, of that country in the Company's government. This treaty was ratified by me in council on the 26th instant.

II. The affairs of Oude have occupied a considerable share of my attention. No probability existing that Zemaun Shah will be able in the course of the present season to renew his

• See Appendix.

hostile attempts against Hindostan, and a conjuncture so favourable coinciding with our successes in Mysore, the most eligible opportunity appeared to be opened for carrying into execution such a reform of the Nabob Vizier's military establishments as should secure us from all future danger on the frontier of Oude, and should enable me to introduce a variety of necessary improvements in the government of that country. With this view it was my intention to establish a considerable augmentation of our troops in Oude without delay, and to induce the Vizier to disband, under certain regulations, a proportional part of his own useless and dangerous force. I had accordingly given orders to the Resident at Lucknow to commence a negotiation with his Excellency for this desirable purpose, and had also directed the movements of several bodies of troops in the provinces to be so arranged as to enable me, before the expiration of the cold season, to increase our force in Oude considerably. Before, however, the Resident at Lucknow could open the proposed negociation with the Vizier, or had disclosed to him any part of my intended plans, his Excellency, of his own accord, made a proposition to the Resident which necessarily supersedes every other arrangement.

III. For several months past his Excellency had intimated to the Resident from time to time an earnest desire to communicate to me an improved system for the government of Oude. But whenever the Resident had pressed his Excellency for a more full explanation of the nature of the proposed arrangement in order that it might be transmitted to me, his Excellency had evaded the discussion with evident symptoms of agitation of mind. At length on the 12th of November, at an interview which his Excellency had himself desired (and it is important again to remark that at this period no proposition had reached his Excellency from the Resident or from me with relation to the increase of the force in Oude), his Excellency signified an anxious desire and a fixed determination to abdicate altogether the government of Oude, and requested the Resident to draw, for the purpose of being forwarded to me, the enclosed paper which I received last night.*

IV. His Excellency appears to have adopted the resolution of abdicating the government upon the maturest deliberation. Your honourable Committee will observe that his Excellency declares this resolution to have originated in the reciprocal aversion subsisting between himself and his subjects (an aversion, which, on his part, he declares to have grown into absolute disgust), and in his sense of his own incompetency from various other considerations, to administer the government either with satisfaction to himself or advantage to his people. But although such considerations may in some degree have influenced his Excellency's determination, I am inclined to believe that the principal causes are to be traced in the timidity and the avarice of his disposition; for it is proper to apprize your honourable Committee that he has intimated an expectation of being permitted to retire with the treasures which he may have amassed.

V. Your honourable Committee will remark that the Resident has used several arguments, but without effect, to dissuade his Excellency from the proposed abdication. If therefore his Excellency should ultimately persevere in this declared intention, it must be deemed entirely and absolutely his own voluntary act.

VI. Whatever may have been the motives, or whatever shall be the ultimate decision of his Excellency on this occasion, it is my intention to profit by the event to the utmost practicable extent; and I entertain a confident hope of being able either to establish, with the consent of the Vizier, the sole and exclusive authority of the Company within the province of Oude and its dependencies, or at least to place our interests in that quarter on an improved and durable foundation.

VII. It occurs to me to be necessary to add in explanation of the close of the third paragraph of this letter, that although the necessity of a reform of the Vizier's military establishments had been for a considerable time under discussion between his Excellency and me, and had even been fully admitted by his Excellency, no detailed measures with a view to the execution of such a plan had yet been suggested, nor had my intention of immediately augmenting our force in Oude been communicated to his Excellency when he opened his mind to the Resident at Lucknow.

I have the honour to be, &c.
MORNINGTON.

No. XLVI.

The Earl of Mornington to the Right Honourable Lord Clive.

MY LORD,

Fort William, 12th Dec. 1799.

This letter will be presented to your Lordship by a prelate of the Armenian Church, the Archbishop and Nuncio of Mount Ararat.

He arrived here lately from Armenia, in his progress to visit the different Armenian churches in India, a septennial visitation of which takes place, as I understand, under the direction of the Chief Patriarch of the Armenian Church. I received the Archbishop of Ararat at my levee soon after his arrival here; on this occasion he presented to me an address, subscribed by himself and another Armenian divine (the Nuncio of Jerusalem) congratulating me on the happy termination of the late war with Tippoo Sultaun.

As the Archbishop now proceeds in the discharge of his mission, to Fort St. George, I beg leave to recommend him to your Lordship's countenance and attention during his residence at the seat of your government.

I have the honour to be, &c.

No. XLVII.

MORNINGTON.

Lt.-Col. Wm. Kirkpatrick to Lt.-Col. William Scott, Resident at Lucknow.

SIR,

Fort William, 16th Dec. 1799.

I am directed by the Right Honourable the Governor-General to acknowledge the receipt of your letter to his Lordship, dated the 22nd of November,* containing a paper communicated by you to his Lordship in pursuance of the earnest injunction of the Vizier.

I have the honour to enclose an answer from his Lordship to that paper, together with a translation of the same in Persian.

* See page 152.

His Lordship is pleased to authorize you to make such alterations in this paper (adhering to its general spirit and tenor) previously to the communication of it to the Vizier, as circumstances not at present in the knowledge of his Lordship may suggest to you to be necessary or advisable. You are even empowered not to deliver the paper to his Excellency if, previously to your receipt of it, his Excellency should either have actually acquiesced in the general tenor of the treaty forwarded to you on the 22nd ultimo, or have indicated a disposition to do so; and you should have any reason to apprehend that the communication of this paper might have the effect of retarding or of otherwise disturbing the arrangements. His Lordship, however, is inclined to think that the train of reasoning contained in this document is equally calculated (by establishing the reasonableness and necessity of the modification of his Excellency's wishes proposed by his Lordship), to remove any objection which his Excellency may have started to the main principle of the treaty, and to confirm his approbation of it, should he have already acceded to it.

In the event of your communicating to the Vizier the accompanying paper, or the substance of it, you will previously affix to it a copy of the treaty transmitted to you on the 22nd ultimo, with such alterations in the same as you may have thought proper to adopt in consequence of the authority given you for this purpose.

You will perceive that the enclosed answer of the Governor-General to the paper containing the formal annunciation of the Vizier's determination to abdicate the Government is silent on that passage of the letter which relates to the maintenance of his Excellency's name. The reason why his Lordship has not judged it necessary to notice this topic is, that it did not appear to him to have originated with his Excellency, but to have arisen rather out of what had dropped from you in the course of the discussion; a consideration which, joined to the general character of the Vizier, disposes his Lordship to believe that his Excellency may not insist on this point. If, however contrary to the expectation of his Lordship, his Excellency should appear anxious on the subject, his Lordship conceives it will be sufficient to answer,