revenue, as in time of peace, at twelve hundred thousand pounds a
year, as he does those of the king of Tanjore (which had not been
assigned) at four hundred and fifty. On this Lord Macartney grounds his
calculations, and on this they choose to ground theirs. It was on this
calculation that the ministry, in direct opposition to the remonstrances
of the Court of Directors, have compelled that miserable enslaved body
to put their hands to an order for appropriating the enormous sum of
480,000_l._ annually, as a fund for paying to their rebellious servants
a debt contracted in defiance of their clearest and most positive
injunctions.

The authority and information of Lord Macartney is held high on this
occasion, though it is totally rejected in every other particular of
this business. I believe I have the honor of being almost as old an
acquaintance as any Lord Macartney has. A constant and unbroken
friendship has subsisted between us from a very early period; and I
trust he thinks, that, as I respect his character, and in general admire
his conduct, I am one of those who feel no common interest in his
reputation. Yet I do not hesitate wholly to disallow the calculation of
1781, without any apprehension that I shall appear to distrust his
veracity or his judgment. This peace estimate of revenue was not
grounded on the state of the Carnatic, as it then, or as it had
recently, stood. It was a statement of former and better times. There is
no doubt that a period did exist, when the large portion of the Carnatic
held by the Nabob of Arcot might be fairly reputed to produce a revenue
to that, or to a greater amount. But the whole had so melted away by the
slow and silent hostility of oppression and mismanagement, that the
revenues, sinking with the prosperity of the country, had fallen to
about 800,000_l._ a year, even before an enemy's horse had imprinted his
hoof on the soil of the Carnatic. From that view, and independently of
the decisive effects of the war which ensued, Sir Eyre Coote conceived
that years must pass before the country could be restored to its former
prosperity, and production. It was that state of revenue (namely, the
actual state before the war) which the Directors have opposed to Lord
Macartney's speculation. They refused to take the revenues for more than
800,000_l._ In this they are justified by Lord Macartney himself, who,
in a subsequent letter, informs the court that his sketch is a matter of
specula