No. 6.

Referred to from pp. 101 and 105.

Extract of a Letter from the Council and Select Committee at Fort St. George, to the Governor-General and Council, dated 25th May, 1783.

In the prosecution of our duty, we beseech you to consider, as an act of strict and necessary justice, previous to reiteration of your orders for the surrender of the assignment, how far it would be likely to affect third persons who do not appear to have committed any breach of their engagements.  You command us to compel our aumils to deliver over their respective charges as shall be appointed by the Nabob, or to retain their trust under his sole authority, if he shall choose to confirm them.  These aumils are really renters; they were appointed in the room of the Nabob’s aumils, and contrary to his wishes; they have already been rejected by him, and are therefore not likely to be confirmed by him.  They applied to this government, in consequence of public advertisements in our name, as possessing in this instance the joint authority of the Nabob and the Company, and have entered into mutual and strict covenants with us, and we with them, relative to the certain districts not actually in the possession of the enemy; by which covenants, as they are bound to the punctual payment of their rents and due management of the country, so we, and our constituents, and the public faith, are in like manner bound to maintain them in the enjoyment of their leases, during the continuance of the term.  That term was for five years, agreeably to the words of the assignment, which declare that the time of renting shall be for three or five years, as the Governor shall settle with the renters.—­Their leases cannot be legally torn from them.  Nothing but their previous breach of a part could justify our breach of the whole.  Such a stretch and abuse of power would, indeed, not only savor of the assumption of sovereignty, but of arbitrary and oppressive despotism.  In the present contest, whether the Nabob be guilty, or we be guilty, the renters are not guilty.  Whichever of the contending parties has broken the condition of the assignment, the renters have not broken the condition of their leases.  These men, in conducting the business of the assignment, have acted in opposition to the designs of the Nabob, in despite of the menaces denounced against all who should dare to oppose the mandates of the Durbar justice.  Gratitude and humanity require that provision should be made by you, before you set the Nabob’s ministers loose on the country, for the protection of the victims devoted to their vengeance.