his constitution.  To this ascendency, in proportion as it grew, must chiefly be ascribed, if not the origin, at least the continuance and increase, of the Nabob’s disunion with this Presidency:  a disunion which creates the importance and subserves the resentments of Mr. Benfield; and an ascendency which, if you effect the surrender of the assignment, will entirely leave the exercise of power and accumulation of fortune at his boundless discretion:  to him, and to the Amir-ul-Omrah, and to Seyd Assam Cawn, the assignment would in fact be surrendered.  HE WILL (IF ANY) BE THE SOUCAR SECURITY; and security in this country is counter-secured by possession.  You would not choose to take the assignment from the Company, to give it to individuals.  Of the impropriety of its returning to the Nabob, Mr. Benfield would now again argue from his former observations, that, under his Highness’s management, his country declined, his people emigrated, his revenues decreased, and his country was rapidly approaching to a state of political insolvency.  Of Seyd Assam Cawn we judge only from the observations this letter already contains.  But of the other two persons [Amir-ul-Omrah and Mr. Benfield] we undertake to declare, not as parties in a cause, or even as voluntary witnesses, but as executive officers, reporting to you, in the discharge of our duty, and under the impression of the sacred obligation which binds us to truth, as well as to justice, that, from every observation of their principles and dispositions, and every information of their character and conduct, they have prosecuted projects to the injury and danger of the Company and individuals; that it would be improper to trust, and dangerous to employ them, in any public or important situation; that the tranquillity of the Carnatic requires a restraint to the power of the Amir; and that the Company, whose service and protection Mr. Benfield has repeatedly and recently forfeited, would be more secure against danger and confusion, if he were removed from their several Presidencies.

[After the above solemn declaration from so weighty an authority, the principal object of that awful and deliberate warning, instead of being “removed from the several Presidencies,” is licensed to return to one of the principal of those Presidencies, and the grand theatre of the operations on account of which the Presidency recommends his total removal.  The reason given is, for the accommodation of that very debt which has been the chief instrument of his dangerous practices, and the main cause of all the confusions in the Company’s government.]

* * * * *

No. 7.

Referred to from pp. 82, 88, and 89.

Extracts from the Evidence of Mr. Petrie, late Resident for the Company at Tanjore, given to the Select Committee, relative to the Revenues and State of the Country, &c., &c.

9th May, 1782.