[26] In Sir Thomas Rumbold’s letter to the Court of Directors, March 15th, 1778, he represents it as higher, in the following manner:—­“How shall I paint to you my astonishment, on my arrival here, when I was informed, that, independent of this four lacs of pagodas [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 lacs of pagodas [2,520,000_l._].  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.”  “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.