my correspondence, your Lordship may have the kindness to honour me with, and under these circumstances, I am at a loss whether I ought to continue to avail myself of your lordship's permission to detain the Swallow, and as I am unwilling to keep her without a pressing necessity from any service your Lordship may wish to employ her upon, I submit her future destination to your consideration, requesting your Lordship to determine that point, according to your judgment, upon the probable contingency of the speedy arrival of my successor in India. I have great satisfaction in being able to inform your Lordship, that I have just received a private communication of the arrangement for the commutation of the military service of of the western Polygars, for a money payment, having been brought to a satisfactory conclusion with those chieftains, by Mr. Stratton, the collector of western Peiswah. The increase of revenue is one lac seventy-eight thousand pagodas. I remain always with the greatest regard and esteem, Most faithfully your's, No. CLXXXIV. CLIVE. The Marquess Wellesley to Lord Clive. MY DEAR LORD, Fort William, September 14, 1802. Your Lordship's kind indulgence, and your knowledge of the multiplied, complex, and vexatious affairs, which have required my personal attention for some time past, will have induced you to forgive the omissions, which have occurred in my private correspondence with you. I have endeavoured to supply the defect as far as might be possible by means of Major Malcolm's letters; but I am still aware that I must rely much on your Lordship's accustomed candour, and considertion of the extreme difficulty and labour of my situation, in the present strange crisis. I desired Major Malcolm to apprize you of my cheerful acquiescence in your Lordship's desire to detain the Swallow Packet, for your eventual conveyance to Europe, in case the Court of Directors should be pleased to send out a successor to your Lordship previously to the proposed time of your return to Europe. In detaining the Swallow at your desire, I felt that I made but a trivial acknowledgement of respect to your Lordship's eminent public services under my administration. I trust that your Lordship will repose implicit confidence in my resolution to discharge towards you (in every situation, and under every possible state of circumstances and events) the duty which I owe to your high personal claims, and the respect due to your father's memory. The time is not distant when the nation and the crown will feel their obligations to your Lordship, and will acknowledge the strength of those securities, which you have added to the empire acquired by your illustrious father. Ever, my dear Lord, With the greatest regard, Your faithful and affectionate servant, WELLESLEY. No. CLXXXV. The Right Hon. Lord Hobart to the Marquess Wellesley. MY LORD, Downing Street, 5th May, 1802. [Received at Fort William, 18th Sept. 1802.] Your Lordship will already have received the intelligence which I had the honour to transmit to you, in my letter of the 28th ultimo, of the favourable termination of the negotiation at Amiens, by the conclusion of a definitive treaty of peace between his Majesty and the Governments of France, Spain and Holland, the ratifications of which treaty have been finally exchanged. In congratulating your Lordship upon an event which has so effectually strengthened our power in India, by the annexation of the island of Ceylon to the British crown; and in adverting to the occurrences which have principally contributed to produce it, the brilliant services of our army in Egypt, and the entire expulsion of the French from that country, claim the first consideration; and I feel a peculiar gratification in having to convey to your Lordship his Majesty's most gracious approbation of your conduct in applying the whole of the troops that you had caused to be assembled at Ceylon and Bombay, to an united effort in co-operation with his Majesty's forces and those of the Ottoman porte, for the attainment of that important object. The ability and energy manifested by your Lordship in the essential aid which you administered to the efforts made in Europe to frustrate the designs of the French are marked with the same character that so eminently distinguished the memorable and triumphant operations of the Mysore war, and the alacrity and dispatch with which you executed the plans of co-operation you had so wisely concerted, and the very judicious arrangements made by your Lordship for that purpose, have accordingly received his Majesty's most gracious approbation. His Majesty's pleasure relative to the return of the Indian army from Egypt, having been already communicated to your Lordship, I have nothing further to add upon that subject. In the papers transmitted by your Lordship to the President of the Board of Control, I have adverted particularly to your correspondence with Admiral Rainier upon the subject of your proposed attack upon the Mauritius, and although from the cordiality and zeal in the prosecution of the public service, which has distinguished the Admiral's conduct upon all occasions, no doubt can be entertained that his dissent to co-operate with your Lordship in that expedition, proceeded from a sense of duty on his part, I am to express his Majesty's entire approbation of the general principles laid down by your Lordship in your letter of the 5th of February, 1801,* with respect to the conduct of the naval and military services. It being of the utmost importance that it should be explicitly understood that in the distant possessions of the British empire during the existence of war, the want of the regular authority should not preclude an attack upon the enemy in The letters here adverted to by Lord Hobart are given in the Appendix, as illustrative of an important principle in Colonial government; the Governor-General's letter to Admiral Rainier of the 20th of February, 1802, is also appended, as shewing the cause of the change in the projected expedition.-[ED.] any case that may appear calculated to promote the public interests. I have the honour to be, &c. HOBART. No. CLXXXVI. The Marquess Wellesley to the Right Honourable Lord Hobart, Secretary of State for the War Department. MY LORD, Fort William, October 2, 1802. 1. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's letter under date the 5th of May, 1802, which reached Fort William on the 18th ultimo, and I request your Lordship to accept my congratulations on the conclusion of peace between his Majesty and the Governments of France and Holland. 2. I have derived peculiar satisfaction from reflecting on the effect of those stipulations in the definitive treaty, by which the island of Ceylon is annexed to the British Crown; and I concur entirely in your Lordship's sentiments with regard to the important accession of strength which has been secured to the British power in India, by the final annexation of that valuable possession to this empire. 3. I request your Lordship to submit to his Majesty, my most dutiful and grateful acknowledgements for the distinguished honour which his Majesty has been pleased to confer upon me in signifying to me through your Lordship, his most gracious and particular approbation of my endeavours to apply in the most effectual manner the forces under my command, to the important object of co-operating with his Majesty's forces from Europe, and with those of the Ottoman Porte, in the expulsion of the French from Egypt. 4. The terms in which your Lordship has conveyed his Majesty's royal pleasure to me demand the warmest return of my gratitude and satisfaction; and I assure your Lordship that the favourable opinion which you are pleased to express of my services in the conduct of the several operations of the army, entrusted to my government and command during the late arduous contest, has furnished a most grateful addition to the honour which I have received from his Majesty on this occasion. I have the honour to be, &c. WELLESLEY. No. CLXXXVII. The Marquess Wellesley to the Right Honourable Lord Hobart, &c. MY LORD, Fort William, October 2, 1802. 1. I have the honour to enclose for your Lordship's information, an extract of a letter from Mr. Stratton, his Majesty's Chargè D'Affaires at the Ottoman Porte, with a copy of the translation of a letter to my address, from the Kauyim Mokàm received at Fort William, on the 19th September. 2. Your Lordship will observe by these documents, that the Grand Seignior has been pleased to confer on me, the order of the Crescent of the first rank, as a mark of his Highness's approbation and favourable opinion, and of his sense of the services rendered by the Indian army in Egypt. 3. I request that your Lordship will be pleased to submit these documents to his Majesty, and to communicate to me the notification of his royal pleasure with regard to my final acceptance of the honour conferred on me by the Ottoman Porte. 4. Having already received his Majesty's most gracious approbation of the same services, which the Porte has noticed by this mark of distinction, and having understood that his Majesty had been pleased to permit British subjects to accept similar honours from the Grand Seignior, I have deemed myself to be at liberty to accept, and to wear the insignia of the order until I can receive the notification of his Majesty's pleasure, and I have also directed Major-General Baird, and other officers, who had received similar honours in Egypt to wear them in India, until further orders may be signified by his Majesty. 5. My object in pursuing this course was to avail myself of the advantage to be derived in the consideration of the numerous class of British subjects in India professing the |