being in general
_servants of the Company_ renders my task, on the part of the Company,
_difficult and invidious_." "I have freed the sanction of this
government from so _corrupt_ a transaction. It is in my mind the most
venal of all proceedings to give the Company's protection to debts that
cannot bear the light; and though it appears exceedingly alarming, that
a country on which you are to depend for resources should be so involved
as to be nearly three years' revenue in debt,--in a country, too, where
one year's revenue can never be called _secure_, by men who know
anything of the politics of this part of India." "I think it proper to
mention to you, that, although _the Nabob reports his private debt to
amount to upwards of sixty lacs_, yet I understand that it is not quite
so much." Afterwards Sir Thomas Rumbold recommended this debt to the
favorable attention of the Company, but without any sufficient reason
for his change of disposition. However, he went no further.

[27] Nabob's proposals, November 25th, 1778; and memorial of the
creditors, March 1st, 1779.

[28] Nabob's proposals to his new consolidated creditors, November 25th,
1778.

[29] Paper signed by the Nabob, 6th January, 1780.

[30] Kistbundi to July 31, 1780.

[31] Governor's letter to the Nabob, 25th July, 1779.

[32] Report of the Select Committee, Madras Consultations, January 7,
1771. See also papers published by the order of the Court of Directors
in 1776; and Lord Macartney's correspondence with Mr. Hastings and the
Nabob of Arcot. See also Mr. Dundas's Appendix, No 376, B. Nabob's
propositions through Mr. Sulivan and Assam Khan, Art. 6, and indeed the
whole.

[33] "The principal object of the expedition is, to get money from
Tanjore to pay the Nabob's debt: if a surplus, to be applied in
discharge of the Nabob's debts to his private creditors."
(Consultations, March 20, 1771; and for further lights, Consultations,
12th June, 1771.) "We are alarmed lest this debt to _individuals_ should
have been the _real_ motive for the aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali [the
Nabob of Arcot], and that _we are plunged into a war_ to put him in
possession of the Mysore revenues _for the discharge of the
debt_."--Letter from the Directors, March 17, 1769.

[34] Letter from the Nabob, May 1st, 1768; and ditto, 24th April, 1770,
1st October; ditto, 16th September, 1772, 16th March, 1773.

[35] Letter from the Presidency at Madras to the Court of Directors,
2