de known to us, we did, on the 23rd of December, 1778,
write to you in the following terms: "Your account of the Nabob's
private debts is very alarming; but from whatever cause or causes those
debts have been contracted or increased, we hereby repeat our orders,
that the sanction of the Company be on no account given to any kind of
security for the payment or liquidation of any part thereof, (except by
the express authority of the Court of Directors,) on any account or
pretence whatever."

The loan of 1777, therefore, has no sanction or authority from us; and
in considering the situation and circumstances of this loan, we cannot
omit to observe, that the creditors could not be ignorant how greatly
the affairs of the Nabob were at that time deranged, and that his debt
to the Company was then very considerable,--the payment of which the
parties took the most effectual means to postpone, by procuring an
assignment of such specific revenues for the discharge of their own
debts as alone could have enabled the Nabob to have discharged that of
the Company.

Under all these circumstances, we should be warranted to refuse our aid
or protection in the recovery of this loan. But when we consider the
inexpediency of keeping the subject of the Nabob's debts longer afloat
than is absolutely necessary,--when we consider how much the final
conclusion of this business will tend to promote tranquillity, credit,
and circulation of property in the Carnatic,--and when we consider that
the debtor concurs with the creditor in establishing the justice of
those debts consolidated in 1777 into gross sums, for which bonds were
given, liable to be transferred to persons different from the original
creditors, and having no share or knowledge of the transactions in which
the debts originated, and of course how little ground there is to expect
any substantial good to result from an unlimited investigation into
them, we have resolved so far to recognize the justice of those debts as
to extend to them that protection which, upon _more_ forcible grounds,
we have seen cause to allow to the other two classes of debts. But
although we so far adopt the general presumption in their favor as to
admit them to a participation in the manner hereafter directed, we do
not mean to debar you from receiving any complaints against those debts
of 1777, at the instance either of the Nabob himself, or of other
creditors injured by their being so admitted, or by any othe