ou must doubtless be astonished, no less at the assurance than at the
absurdity of such a wicked suggestion.

* * * * *

IN THE NABOB'S OWN HAND.

P.S. In my own handwriting I acquainted Mr. Hastings, as I now do my
ancient friends the Company, with the insult offered to my honor and
understanding, in the extraordinary propositions sent to me by Lord
Macartney, through two gentlemen, on the 10th instant, so artfully
veiled with menaces, hopes, and promises. But how can Lord Macartney add
to his enormities, after his wicked and calumniating insinuations, so
evidently directed against me and my family, through my faithful, my
dutiful, and beloved son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who, you well know, has been
ever born and bred amongst the English, whom I have studiously brought
up in the warmest sentiments of affection and attachment to
them,--sentiments that in his maturity have been his highest ambition to
improve, insomuch that he knows no happiness but in the faithful support
of our alliance and connection with the English nation?

12th August, and Postscript of the 16th August, 1783. _Translation
of a Letter to the Chairman and Directors of the East India
Company._ Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.

Your astonishment and indignation will be equally raised with mine, when
you hear that your President _has dared_, contrary to your intention, to
continue to usurp the privileges and hereditary powers of the Nabob of
the Carnatic, your old and unshaken friend, and the declared ally of the
king of Great Britain.

I will not take up your time by enumerating the particular acts of Lord
Macartney's violence, cruelty, and injustice: _they, indeed, occur too
frequently, and fall upon me and my devoted subjects and country too
thick, to be regularly related_. I refer you to my minister, Mr. James
Macpherson, _for a more circumstantial account of the oppressions and
enormities by which he has brought both mine_ and the Company's affairs
to the brink of destruction. I trust that such flagrant violations of
all justice, honor, and the faith of treaties will receive the severest
marks of your displeasure, and that Lord Macartney's conduct, in making
use of your name and authority as a sanction for the continuance of his
usurpation, will be disclaimed with the utmost indignation, and followed
with the severest punishment. I conceive that his Lordship's arbitrary
retention of