RELATIVE TO THE

Directions for charging the Nabob of Arcot’s private debts to Europeans on the revenues of the carnatic,

February 28, 1785.

With an appendix,

Containing several documents.

[Greek:  Entautha ti prattein hechren andra ton Platonos kai Aristotelous zeloten dogmaton; ara perioran anthropous athlious tois kleptais ekdidomenous, e kata dunamin antois amunein, oimai, os ede to kukneion exadousi dia to themises ergasterion ton toiouton; Emoi men oun aischrhon eivai dokei tous men chiliarchous, otan leiposi ten taxin, katadikazein ... ten de hyper athlion anthropon hapoleipein taxin, otan dee pros kleptas agonizesthai toioutous kai tauta tou thiou summachountos hemin, oster oun etaxen.]

JULIANI Epist. 17.

ADVERTISEMENT.

That the least informed reader of this speech may be enabled to enter fully into the spirit of the transaction on occasion of which it was delivered, it may be proper to acquaint him, that, among the princes dependent on this nation in the southern part of India, the most considerable at present is commonly known by the title of the Nabob of Arcot.

This prince owed the establishment of his government, against the claims of his elder brother, as well as those of other competitors, to the arms and influence of the British East India Company.  Being thus established in a considerable part of the dominions he now possesses, he began, about the year 1765, to form, at the instigation (as he asserts) of the servants of the East India Company, a variety of designs for the further extension of his territories.  Some years after, he carried his views to certain objects of interior arrangement, of a very pernicious nature.  None of these designs could be compassed without the aid of the Company’s arms; nor could those arms be employed consistently with an obedience to the Company’s orders.  He was therefore advised to form a more secret, but an equally powerful, interest among the servants of that Company, and among others both at home and abroad.  By engaging them in his interests, the use of the Company’s power might be obtained without their ostensible authority; the power might even be employed in defiance of the authority, if the case should require, as in truth it often did require, a proceeding of that degree of boldness.