William Petrie, Esq., attending according to order, was asked, In what station he was in the Company’s service? he said, He went to India in the year 1765, a writer upon the Madras establishment:  he was employed, during the former war with Hyder Ali, in the capacity of paymaster and commissary to part of the army, and was afterwards paymaster and commissary to the army in the first siege of Tanjore, and the subsequent campaigns; then secretary to the Secret Department from 1772 to 1775; he came to England in 1775, and returned again to Madras the beginning of 1778; he was resident at the durbar of the Rajah of Tanjore from that time to the month of May; and from that time to January, 1780, was chief of Nagore and Carrical, the first of which was received from the Rajah of Tanjore, and the second was taken from the French.—­Being asked, Who sent him to Tanjore? he said, Sir Thomas Rumbold, and the Secret Committee.—­Being then asked, Upon what errand? he said, He went first up with a letter from the Company to the Rajah of Tanjore:  he was directed to give the Rajah the strongest assurances that he should be kept in possession of his country, and every privilege to which he had been restored; he was likewise directed to negotiate with the Rajah of Tanjore for the cession of the seaport and district of Nagore in lieu of the town and district of Devicotta, which he had promised to Lord Pigot:  these were the principal, and, to the best of his recollection at present, the only objects in view, when he was first sent up to Tanjore.  In the course of his stay at Tanjore, other matters of business occurred between the Company and the Rajah, which came under his management as resident at that durbar.—­Being asked, Whether the Rajah did deliver up to him the town and the annexed districts of Nagore voluntarily, or whether he was forced to it? he said, When he made the first proposition to the Rajah, agreeable to the directions he had received from the Secret Committee at Madras, in the most free, open, and liberal manner, the Rajah told him the seaport of Nagore was entirely at the service of his benefactors, the Company, and that he was happy in having that opportunity of testifying his gratitude to them.  These may be supposed to be words of course; but, from every experience which he had of the Rajah’s mind and conduct, whilst he was at Tanjore, he has reason to believe that his declarations of gratitude to the Company were perfectly sincere.  He speaks to the town of Nagore at present, and a certain district,—­not of the districts to the amount of which they afterwards received.  The Rajah asked him, To what amount he expected a jaghire to the Company?  And the witness further said, That he acknowledged to the committee that he was not instructed upon that head; that he wrote for orders to Madras, and was directed to ask the Rajah for a jaghire to a certain amount; that this gave rise to a long negotiation, the Rajah representing to him his inability to make such a gift to the Company as