servants which had long been manifest to all his neighbours, with a view to encourage him in his laudable resolution to dismiss them from his service, and to offer my aid in effecting the object should he require it, and he promises me not to swerve from it, but afterwards relents and retains the impostors, I pity his weakness, but I do not consider it due to myself, or to my character, to insist upon his fulfilling his promise.  By considering two cases so very distinct, the same, you have placed yourself in a disagreeable situation, for I cannot support you; that is, I can neither demand that the requisitions made by you be complied with, nor can I tell the King that I approve of them.  Had you waited for my reply, which was sent off from Bahraetch on the 10th, you would have saved yourself all this annoyance and mortification.  It has arisen from an overweening confidence in your personal influence over his Majesty; the fact is, I believe that no European gentleman ever has had or ever will have any personal influence over him, and I very much doubt whether any real native gentleman will ever have any.  He never has felt any pleasure in their society, and I fear never will.  He has hitherto felt easy only in the society of such persons as those with whom he now exclusively associates, and to hope that he will ever feel easy with persons of a better class is vain.  I am perfectly satisfied, in spite of the oath he has taken in the name of his God, and on the head of his minister, that he made to you the promise you mention; and I am no less satisfied that the minister wished for the removal of the singers, provided it should be effected through us without his appearing to his master to move in the matter, and that he wished their removal solely with a view to acquire for himself the authority they had possessed.  You should not have any more audiences with the King without previous reference to me; nothing is likely to occur to require it.

Yours sincerely,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To Captain Bird,
   &c. &c.

__________________________

Camp, Fyzabad, 18th December, 1819.

My Dear Bird,

I send you the letter which you wish to refer to.  As you quote my first letter, pray let me see it.  I kept no copy, but have a distinct recollection of what I intended to say in it regarding this affair of the singers.  It shall be sent back to you.  The term “indiscreet” had reference only to your second visit, and demand from the King of the fulfilment of his promise.  I had no fault whatever to find with your first visit.  The term “private” must have had reference, not to the promise or to the person to whom it was made, but to the offence with which the singers stood charged.  It was an affront offered to the King’s understanding that he took affront at, and whether he had made a promise to resent it as such to me, or to you could make no difference.  If he did not fulfil it,