Chapter VI: Farming of Revenues in Madras (1763-1785)

CHAPTER VI

FARMING OF REVENUES IN MADRAS (1763-1785)

In the preceding chapters we have narrated the economic history of Bengal from 1757 to 1793; and we must now turn to the state of things in Madras, where the long wars between the British and the French were at last concluded by the Peace of Paris in 1763.

The eventful history of these wars has been often told. It was a momentous struggle for the possession of Southern India. It was a contest between Dupleix, who began the construction of a French empire, and Robert Clive, who demolished that unfinished structure. Later on, it was a patriotic and persevering endeavour made by the talented Bussy and the impetuous Lally for saving the power of France in the East, which was finally destroyed by Eyre Coote. The Treaty of Paris finally recognised the success of England; France was never after her rival in India.

It is a great relief to us to turn from the twice-told tale of these wars to the economic condition of the people. The history of India is not the history of the British and French wars, but of the people of India—their material and moral condition, their trades, industries, and agriculture. And it is because this true history of the people has hitherto received scant attention, that we devote the present work entirely to that instructive subject, leaving the more dramatic story of wars to more brilliant writers.

The twenty years’ struggle between the French and the English ended, as has been stated before, in 1763. The settlement of Pondicherry and a few other places were restored to the French, but the English remained supreme in Southern India. Mahomed Ali, a creature of the British, was recognised as Nawab of the Karnatic, while the immediate possessions of the British extended over some territory round Madras, and over the whole of the eastern seaboard stretching northwards to Bengal.

The character of Mahomed Ali, Nawab of the Karnatic, was the very opposite of that of his contemporary, Mir Kasim, Nawab of Bengal. Mir Kasim was a determined man and a strong ruler; Mahomed Ali was a feeble man and a luxurious prince. Mir Kasim removed his seat of government to Monghyr in order to organise his own administration away from British influence; Mahomed Ali left his own capital, Arcot, to live amidst the luxuries of the British town of Madras. Mir Kasim was a stern economist, and paid off all his pecuniary obligations to the British in two years after he had ascended the throne; Mahomed Ali never could liquidate the claims of the Company, and drifted more and more into debt. Mir Kasim fought with the British in order to keep the inland trade of Bengal in the hands of his own subjects; Mahomed Ali made assignments of his land revenues to his British money-lenders, until virtually the whole of his territories passed into the hands of his creditors. Mir Kasim was driven out of his dominions and died an exile; Mahomed Ali lived in inglorious dependence, luxury, and debt, and died in ripe old age. A strong ruler had no place in the scheme of British dominion in the East; a weak ruler was permitted to live and to borrow, and to pay the interest out of the revenues of his kingdom.

Under the administration of this feeble potentate the Company found it easy to extend its influence and power. The Company did not stand forth as the Dewan of the Karnatic, as they had done in Bengal in 1765. On the contrary, Mahomed Ali remained nominally the Dewan or revenue administrator, as well as the Nizam or military governor, while the Company virtually enjoyed all real power. The military defence of the country was undertaken by the Company, and a part of the Nawab’s revenues was assigned for this purpose. The demands of the Company increased with their wars, and the Nawab came to adopt the strange method of borrowing from the servants of the Company in order to meet the demands of the Company.

What was still more significant and fatal was the security which the Nawab offered for these private debts. Unable or unwilling to draw from his own hoards, he readily delivered up to his private creditors the revenues of his territories. The cultivators of the Karnatic passed from the rule of the Nawab’s agents to the rule of British money-lenders. The crops that grew in the fields were subject to the inalienable claims of British creditors. The collections which were made by the Nawab’s servants, often under coercion and the use of the whip, were handed over to the British servants of the Company in order to be remitted to Europe. The whole of the Karnatic resembled an egg-shell with its contents taken out. The fields and villages of Southern India were converted into a vast farm, and the tillers tilled and the labourers toiled in order that all the value of the produce might be annually exported to Europe.

A double injury was thus done to the country and to the people. The Nawab’s methods of collection, though always harsh and severe, were elastic; and his demands were suited to the produce of the soil from year to year. But when his creditors appeared on the scene, the harshness of the Nawab’s method was combined with the strictness and inelasticity of the British procedure. The claims of the Nawab’s creditors were strictly enforced, and the agriculturists felt a pressure which they had seldom known before. In the second place, so long as the revenues were enjoyed by the Nawab, they were spent in the country and flowed back to the people in one shape or another; but when the entire revenues of the assigned districts were claimed and obtained by the British moneylenders, they left the country once and for ever. The country became poorer, industries and trades declined.

We have evidence of this in the testimony of witnesses examined by the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed in 1782 to inquire into the administration of justice in India.

“George Smith, Esquire, attending according to order, was asked how long he resided in India, where, and in what capacity? He said he arrived in India in the year 1764; he resided in Madras from 1767 to October 1779. Being asked what was the state of trade at Madras at the time when he first knew it, he said it was in a flourishing condition, and Madras one of the first marts in India. Being asked in what condition did he leave it with respect to trade, he replied at the time of his leaving it, there was little or no trade, and but one ship belonging to the place. Being asked in what state the interior country of the Karnatic was with regard to commerce and cultivation when he first knew it, he said at that period he understood the Karnatic to be in a well-cultivated and populous condition, and as such consuming a great many articles of merchandise and trade. Being asked in what condition it was when he left Madras with respect to cultivation, population, and internal commerce, he said in respect to cultivation, greatly on the decline, and also in respect of population; and as to commerce, exceedingly circumscribed.”¹

The servants of the Company, comprising members of the Madras Council, were building up large fortunes from their loans to the Nawab, and were not anxious to keep the Court of Directors fully informed of their doings. Under the orders of the Court of Directors, however, they had consolidated their loans into one loan of 1767 at the moderate rate of 10 per cent interest, and they even expressed a hope, from time to time, that the Nawab would pay off his loan. It was neither their interest, however, nor that of the effete and inefficient Nawab, to close the transaction; and it was never closed. And when the full official account of the transaction at last reached the Directors in 1769, their anger knew no bounds.

“As this whole transaction has, to your great reproach, been concealed from us, we cannot but suspect this debt to have had its weight in your proposed aggrandisement of Mahomed Ally; but whether it has or not, certain it is that you are guilty of a high breach of duty in concealing it from us.” [1]

“Charged on our part with the recovery of a debt due from the Nawab, for supporting him in a war during almost twenty years, how can our servants, consistent with their duty and fidelity, neglect the discharge of so great a public trust, or suffer any interest of their own to come in competition with it? Or how can they dare to employ the forces, influence, and authority of the Company in collecting the revenues of the Nawab, mortgaged to themselves?” [2]

“The said Governor and Council have, in notorious violation of the trust reposed in them, manifestly preferred the interest of private persons to that of the Company, in permitting the assignment of the revenues of certain valuable districts to a very large amount from the Nawab to individuals which ought to have been applied towards the discharge of the Nawab’s debt to the Company; the impropriety of which conduct is the more striking as those revenues, in a very great degree, owe their existence to the protection of the Company; and by such unnatural application of the said revenues, although the care and expense of protecting the Karnatic falls principally on the Company, the prospect of paying off the vast sums owing to us by the Nawab is postponed.”¹

Warren Hastings, who had protested against the claim of the Company’s servants to a virtual monopoly of the inland trade in Bengal, was now a member of the Madras Council, and he made an honest endeavour to terminate the assignment of land revenues made by the Nawab of Arcot to the Company’s servants in Madras. In a clear and forcible letter, which bears the impress of his style, and which was signed by him and three other members of the Madras Council, the action taken at Madras on receipt of the Directors’ letters is fully described.

“We understand the sense and spirit of your orders to us to be this: that whereas the Nawab having made an assignment, by deed under his hand and seal, to certain persons of the revenues of part of the Karnatic, in trust, that the same should be applied in discharge of his private debts in exclusion of the Company, you highly disapprove of, tell us that you will not suffer the idea of such an independent right to exist either in the Nawab or your servants, and enjoin us to demand a renunciation of the right they claim under that deed of assignment; that done, you command us to inform the Nawab that his first obligation is to discharge the debt to the Company, and that being done you authorise us to give the sanction of the Company’s authority to such measures as we shall concert with the Nawab for the discharge of his debts to individuals….

“The President and Mr. Du Pre made their formal renunciation of all pretentions under the deed of assignment, and put themselves under the Company’s protection for the recovery of their debts, and the example was followed by several others after your orders had been publicly made known to them; but a very large majority having in effect refused to submit themselves to the Company’s protection on the mode we had proposed, we thought it not advisable to enforce the demand by any act of compulsion.“¹

In another letter written in the same year, Warren Hastings indicated how the Nawab, who was a tool in the hands of his private creditors, was endeavouring to create influence in England against the Company, and in favour of his creditors.

“Till very lately the Nawab placed his dependence on the Court of Directors, and considered them as the Company; now he has been taught by ill-advisers that an interest out of doors may stand him in good stead; he has been made to believe that his private creditors have power and interest to overrule the Court of Directors; and what is worse than all, he seems to be strongly impressed with an opinion that the authority of Parliament and of the Crown will be exerted in his behalf against the Company.“²

The Nawab had not been misinformed. His creditors, who amassed vast fortunes from the rents of the assigned districts, were soon able to qualify a large number of votes, and to make themselves masters of the Court of Directors; and, as we shall see farther on, all their claims were admitted eventually without inquiry.

In the meantime the Nawab had nearly exhausted the resources of his own kingdom by assignments to his creditors, and began to cast longing eyes on the rich state of the Raja of Tanjore. In the treaty which had been concluded between the British and Haidar Ali in 1769, the Raja of Tanjore had been recognised as an ally of the British. But even the Court of Directors became covetous of the wealth of their “ally,” and gave a willing ear to the proposals of Mahomed Ali to rob Tanjore in order to repay his debts to the Company.

“It appears most unreasonable to us,” wrote the Directors, “that the Raja of Tanjore should hold possession of the most fruitful part of the country, which can alone supply an army with subsistence, and not contribute to the defence of the Karnatic. . . . We therefore enjoin you to give the Nawab such support in his pretentions as may be effectual, and if the Raja refuses to contribute a just proportion to the expense of the war, you are then to pursue such measures as the Nawab may think consistent with the justice and dignity of his government. Whatever sums may, in consequence of the above orders, be obtained from the Raja of Tanjore, we expect shall be applied to the discharge of the Nawab’s debt to the Company; and if more than sufficient for the purpose, to the discharge of his debts to individuals.“¹

This was a broad hint, and was acted upon. Tanjore was besieged in 1771, and saved itself only by the payment of £400,000. But this only whetted the appetite of the Nawab, and his friends the British were easily led to think that “it is dangerous to have such a power in the heart of the province.” Tanjore was besieged again and captured on the 16th September 1773; the unfortunate Raja and his family were taken prisoners in the fort; and his dominions were transferred to the Nawab.

Never was a flourishing and prosperous state so reduced within a few years of misgovernment as the State of Tanjore after it passed under the government of the Nawab. Regarding it as a hostile and conquered country, Mahomed Ali multiplied his exactions upon the people, made assignments of its revenues to his British creditors, and ruined its trade and industries; and within a few years Tanjore, the garden of Southern India, became one of the most desolate tracts on the eastern coast.

“Before I speak of the present state of Tanjore country,” said Mr. Petrie in his evidence before the Committee of Secrecy in 1782, “it will be necessary to inform the Committee that not many years ago that province was considered as one of the most flourishing, best cultivated, populous districts in Hindustan. I first saw this country in 1768, when it presented a very different picture from its present situation. Tanjore was formerly a place of great foreign and inland trade; it imported cotton from Bombay and Surat, raw and worked silks from Bengal, sugar, spices, &c., from Sumatra, Malacca, and the eastern islands; gold, horses, elephants, and timber from Pegu, and various articles of trade from China. It was by means of Tanjore that a great part of Haidar Ali’s dominions and the northwestern parts of the Mahratta empire were supplied with many European commodities, and with a species of silk manufacture from Bengal, which is almost universally worn as a part of dress by the natives of Hindustan. The exports of Tanjore were muslins, chintz, handkerchiefs, ginghams, various sorts of long-cloths, and a coarse printed cloth, which last constitutes a material article in the investments of the Dutch and the Danes, being in great demand for the African, West Indian, and South American markets. Few countries have more natural advantages than Tanjore; it possesses a rich and fertile soil, singularly well supplied with water from the two great rivers Cavery and Coleroon, which, by means of reservoirs, sluices, and canals, are made to disperse their waters through almost every field in the country; to this latter cause we may chiefly attribute the uncommon fertility of Tanjore. The face of the country is beautifully diversified, and in its appearance approaches nearer to England than any other part of India that I have seen. Such was Tanjore not many years ago, but its decline has been so rapid, that in many districts it would be difficult to trace the remains of its former opulence…

“At this period [1771], as I have been informed, the manufactures flourished, the country was populous and well cultivated, the inhabitants were wealthy and industrious. Since the year 1771, the era of the first siege, until the restoration of the Raja, the country having been during that period twice the seat of war, and having undergone revolutions in the government, trade, manufactures, and agriculture were neglected, and many thousands of inhabitants went in quest of a more secure abode.”¹

The time now came for the appointment of a new Governor of Madras. Mr. Pigot had been Governor of Madras at the time of the French wars, had returned to England in 1763, and had been successively raised to the dignity of a baronet and an Irish peer. Desirous of introducing reforms in the administration of the province, he was appointed Governor of Madras once more in 1775. The Directors had not altogether approved of the annexation of Tanjore by Mahomed Ali, and under their orders Lord Pigot resolved to restore the Raja. Mahomed Ali tried all his arts to prevent the restoration, but Lord Pigot was determined, and the Raja was seated on his throne once more on the 30th March 1776.

The Governor’s difficulties now began. Among the many creditors of the Nawab of Arcot, one Paul Benfield had obtained an unenviable prominence. He had come out to India in 1763 in the Company’s service as a civil architect, but had succeeded better as an architect of his own fortunes by usury. When the Raja of Tanjore was reseated on his throne, Benfield claimed that he had assignments upon the revenues of Tanjore to the amount of £162,000 for money lent to the Nawab, and that for money lent to individuals in Tanjore he had assignments upon the standing crops to the amount of £72,000. The incident throws a strong light on the times. Benfield was still a junior servant of the Company drawing a few hundred pounds a year, but he kept the finest carriages and horses in Madras, and he claimed a fabulous sum from the Nawab. The revenues of a rich state and the standing crops of a nation of agriculturists were supposed to be hypothecated for the satisfaction of his claim.

Lord Pigot laid Benfield’s claims before the Board. Benfield was unable to produce vouchers, but urged that the Nawab would admit his debt. The Board resolved by a majority that Benfield’s claims against individuals had not been sufficiently explained, and that the assignments of the Nawab on the revenues of Tanjore were not admissible. Benfield was not satisfied, and he had friends and resources. His claims were again brought before the Council, and admitted. Lord Pigot’s proposal to send Russell as Resident to Tanjore did not satisfy the majority of members. Colonel Stuart, who was supposed to have agreed to manage Tanjore affairs in the interest of the creditors, was chosen. Lord Pigot resisted the majority, and on the 24th August 1776 he was arrested by Colonel Stuart and imprisoned.

“Colonel Stuart dined with me, and after dinner I invited him to supper at the Company’s garden house. . . Between seven and eight o’clock at night I went from the fort-house with Colonel Stuart to my chaise. On the island, between the two bridges, I saw Lieutenant-Colonel Edington, the Adjutant-General, come running aslant the road, from the southern side, towards the chaise. Supposing he wanted to speak to us, I reined in the horses; and when Edington got near their heads, he waved his naked sword and cried ‘Sepoys;’ whereupon a party of Sepoys came from behind the trees on the other side, and Captain Lysaught, with a pistol in his hand, came up to the chaise from that side, and said to me, ‘You are my prisoner.’ . . . I was then conducted by Captain Lysaught to Mr. Benfield’s post-chaise.“¹

The Court of Directors were staggered by this information, but there was a division of opinion among them. They ordered Lord Pigot to be restored to liberty, but they also ordered his recall. Before these orders could reach India, Lord Pigot had passed beyond the reach of honour or of disgrace. He died in confinement in 1777. Sir Thomas Rumbold succeeded as Governor of Madras in 1778.

The creditors of the Nawab, who had brought about the revolution of 1776, were not unmindful of their own interests. We have spoken before of the first loan of 1767. A second loan was now contracted in 1777. The Nawab was persuaded to discharge his useless cavalry, but had no money to pay them. Taylor, Majendie, and Call offered to advance £160,000 if the Company’s sanction were given to the debt, and this was done. Assignments of revenues were of course made, and the Nawab’s manager complained to him two years after : “The entire revenue of those districts is by your Highness’s order set apart to discharge the Tuncaws granted to the Europeans. The Gomastas of Mr. Taylor…are there in order to collect those Tuncaws, and as they receive all the revenue that is collected, your Highness’s troops have seven or eight months’ pay due which they cannot receive.”

A third loan of over two million pounds sterling was also consolidated in this eventful year, 1777, and Sir Thomas Rumbold, on his arrival at Madras, wrote of this new loan with just indignation.

“How shall I paint to you my astonishment on my arrival here, when I was informed that, independent of this four lakhs of pagodas [£160,000, the cavalry loan], independent of the Nabob’s debt to his old creditors and the money due to the Company, he had contracted a debt to the enormous amount of sixty-three lakhs of pagodas [£2,520,000]. I mention this circumstance to you with horror, for the creditors being in general servants of the Company, renders my task on the part of the Company difficult and invidious.” $^1$

From this miserable state of affairs in the Karnatic, Sir Thomas Rumbold turned his attention to the Northern Circars, the maritime country extending northwards which belonged to the British. The country was parcelled out among Zemindars, who were hereditary landlords as well as ruling chiefs within their own estates. The Company’s administration had been harsh towards these Zemindars, and their estates had been impoverished. Sir Thomas himself bears eloquent testimony to their former prosperity and their present decline.

“It will remain an eternal reproach to the Company’s government in India, that it seems to have been a principle of their policy to drive every native of consequence out of their territories. Let any man who has traced the change from the happier days of Bengal and the Circars to their present desolate and deserted state, come forward and explain to the nation, whose name and honour are deeply concerned in the question, what is become of the train of princes, chiefs, and opulent landholders which once covered the face of these countries? …

“From the language which the Court of Directors have lately adopted, the public must be led to infer that the Company have not barely succeeded to some rights of sovereignty in this country, but they are become exclusive proprietors of the soil! And that these noble Zemindars, the real and sole holders of the lands, which they inherit from a line of ancestry that would appear fabulous in Europe, had on a sudden been converted into farmers, or rather peasants and labourers in the Company’s fields. The tribute, not rent, paid by these chiefs to the Moghal invaders (who were never able entirely to subjugate their country) was a sort of ransom of their ancient independence. It was the price of a quiet possession of their property, privileges, customs, and habits. It was always assessed with moderation, and with a just regard to the immense establishments which the opinion of the country renders it necessary for persons of their consequence and distinction to keep on foot. The Soubah [the Great Moghal’s Viceroy] settled with the Zemindars without ever attempting to interfere with the collection. It would have been happy for all parties, if the same wise maxims had continued to be respected after the cession of the Circars to the Company. The country would have flourished, and the Company would have prospered in the prosperity of their tributaries.” ¹

It had been proposed to form a Committee of Circuit for settling the revenues payable by the Zemindars of the Northern Circars after local inquiries. Sir Thomas Rumbold suspended this Committee, and ordered the Zemindars to come down to Madras. This created much consternation among them; but eighteen of the thirty-one Zemindars summoned to Madras obeyed the order. Settlements were made for five years, and “the sum total of the additions made to the revenue at different times since the accession of the Company to the Circars amounts to above 50 per cent. upon the old establishment.” ²

But the Directors were not satisfied. They believed that the Committee of Circuit would have shown still more satisfactory results. They charged Sir Thomas Rumbold with violation of orders in suspending the Committee, and with harshness to the Zemindars in summoning them to Madras. They also charged him with corruption, and pointed out that he had remitted £164,000 to Europe within two years. They accordingly dismissed him from the Company’s service in January 1781.

Lord Macartney, a nobleman of great urbanity and moderation, of political experience and undoubted talents, was appointed Governor of Madras, and arrived in June 1781. The Province was in the lowest depths of misery and wretchedness. To the effects of long misrule were added the misfortunes of a great war with Haidar Ali, the ruler of Mysore. His cavalry overran the country, spread ruin and desolation within a circle of many miles round Madras, and filled the Karnatic with dismay. The people fled to the woods, fields were left uncultivated, villages were burnt and destroyed. Alarm succeeded alarm, while the Council of Madras were vacillating in their plans for meeting this terrible enemy.

Into the events of this war it is not our purpose to enter. Warren Hastings, who was now Governor-General, sent the veteran commander, Sir Eyre Coote, to save Southern India once more. Sir Eyre fought four battles with Haidar Ali. Haidar Ali retreated, but was not crushed. In September 1872 Sir Eyre left Madras for Bengal, and in December 1782 Haidar Ali died. Peace was made with his son Tipu Sultan in 1783.

These accumulated misfortunes, coupled with the impoverishment of the people, brought on the widespread and terrible famine of Madras in 1783. The revenues of the Company generally showed a surplus, but their “Investments,” i.e. commodities and merchandise purchased out of the revenues for sale in Europe, converted the surplus into a deficit. The following figures [1] are taken from official records: Receipts and Expenditure for Twelve Years in Madras Presidency.

*Receipts and Expenditure for Twelve Years in Madras Presideney. *

Surplus or deficit, the purchase of Investments never ceased; and the amount of cargoes to Europe valued at prime cost during this period exceeded two million sterling.

But the oppressiveness of the Company’s exactions was exceeded tenfold by that of the British creditors who had received assignments of revenues for their loans. And when the matter came for final settlement in the House of Commons, the influence created by those creditors in the House was so great, that all the supposed claims, fraudulent or otherwise, were admitted without inquiry.

Paul Benfield, the greatest and most successful of the creditors, used the vast wealth he had accumulated in India in creating parliamentary influence in England. He returned eight members to Parliament including himself, and he was a powerful and influential man whom the Ministry did not care to offend. “It was to hold the corrupt benefit of a large parliamentary interest, created by the creditors and creatures, fraudulent and not fraudulent, of the Nawab of Arcot, that . . . the Ministry of 1784 decided that they should all, whether fraudulent or not fraudulent, receive their demands.” ¹

The historian of British India, from whose work we have made the above extract, proceeds to quote from the ever-memorable speech in which Edmund Burke condemned this most discreditable episode of British parliamentary history.

“Paul Benfield is the grand parliamentary reformer. What region in the empire, what city, what borough, what county, what tribunal in this kingdom, is not full of his labours? In order to station a steady phalanx for all future reforms, the public-spirited usurer, amidst his charitable toils for the relief of India, did not forget the poor rotten constitution of his native country. For her he did not disdain to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House, to furnish it, not with the faded tapestry figures of antiquated merit, such as decorate, and may reproach, some other Houses, but with real, solid, living patterns of true modern virtue. Paul Benfield made, reckoning himself, no fewer than eight members of the last Parliament. What copious streams of pure blood must he not have transfused into the veins of the present. . . .

“For your Minister, this worn-out veteran [Benfield’s agent] submitted to enter into the dusty field of the London contest; and you will remember that in the same virtuous cause he submitted to keep a sort of public office or countinghouse, where the whole business of the last general election was managed. It was openly managed by the direct agent and attorney of Benfield. It was managed upon Indian principles and for an Indian interest. This was the golden cup of abominations… which so many of the people, so many of the nobles of this land, had drained to the very dregs. Do you think that no reckoning was to follow this lewd debauch? That no payment was to be demanded for this riot of public drunkenness and national prostitution? Here you have it, here before you. The principal of the grand election manager must be indemnified. Accordingly the claims of Benfield and his crew must be put above all inquiry.“¹

The golden cup was drained by the people and the nobles of England, and the payment was demanded from India! An inquiry was not made into Benfield’s claims because the cultivators of the Karnatic were to pay. The admission of all such claims without inquiry exaggerated the evil, and shoals of British money-lenders flocked to the Karnatic to make rapid fortunes in a similar way. New claims against the Nawab of the Karnatic amounting to £20,390,570 were preferred, and Commissioners were appointed to decide on these claims. The Karnatic had by that time been annexed by Lord Wellesley and was British territory. The claims, if admitted, would have to be paid, not by a Nawab, but by the Company’s Government. Therefore an inquiry was made; and the result of the inquiry was that a sum of only £1,346,796 was admitted as valid, the remainder, exceeding nineteen millions sterling, was rejected as fraudulent and bad.

Footnotes

¹ Select Committee at Fort St. George to the Court of Directors, dated 31st January 1770.

² Select Committee at Fort St. George to the Court of Directors, dated 6th April 1770.

¹ Court of Directors to the Select Committee at Fort St. George, dated 17th March 1769.

¹ Fourth Report of the Committee of Secrecy, 1782, Appendix, No. 22.

¹ Lord Pigot’s Narrative of the Revolution in the Government of Madras, dated 11th September 1776, p. 11 et seq.

[1] Letter to the Court of Directors, dated 15th March 1778.

¹ Burke’s speech on the Nawab of Arcot’s debts.