a failure in the payment of the subsidy would be effectually precluded, the evils, abuses, and oppressions, of the civil administration would continue to operate with considerable violence in the territory remaining in his excellency's hands. 25. The foregoing considerations have determined me to make another effort to obtain his excellency's consent to the terms of the first proposition. 26. If his excellency should persist in his rejection of that salutary arrangement, the same considerations must confirm my resolution to adhere to the just and indispensable demand of territorial security. 27. I accordingly direct you to avail yourself of the carliest opportunity to renew the negotiation intrusted to your charge by my instructions of the 22d January. The foregoing observations will suggest the requisite arguments for the support of the first proposition in preference to the second. You will there fore press this important point upon his excellency with the utmost degree of earnestness; and you will endeavour to obtain his excellency's consent to enter into a negotiation for the conclusion of a treaty upon the basis of that which you have already proposed to him, or with such modifications as you have been authorized to make, or as circumstances may appear to you to render advisable, without departing from the general tenor and spirit of my instructions upon that head. In discussing this subject it will be proper to remind his excel lency, that the first proposition is founded on his own deliberate and formal declaration-that he was utterly unable to administer the affairs of his government -that "his mind was utterly withdrawn "from the government of a people who "where neither pleased with him, nor "he with them; and with whose "evil dispositions, enmity, disobe"dience, and negligence, he was com"pletely disgusted.' 28. You will further express to his excellency my surprize, that under a manifest and increasing aggravation of all those circumstances of vexation and difficulty, of embarrassed resources, of internal discord, and of popular discontent and disaffection, which originally induced him to make a formal avowal of his own incapacity and disqualification, his excellency should now decline to enter into any discussion of his former resolution; and although he originally solicited my attention to his desire of resigning the exercise of the government, at a moment when his abdication was entirely unexpected by me, that he should now reject every possible modification of his own suggestion, peremptorily declaring, that his consent to the first proposition is altogether impracticable. 29. Should his excellency, however, persist in his absolute rejection of that proposition, it will then become your duty to impress on his excellency's mind the unavoidable necessity of his acquiescence in the second proposition, as founded upon the most indisputable principles of right and justice. 30. With the view to assist your judgment in stating to his excellency the right of the company to demand territorial security for the payr ent of subsidy, I shall here advert to some of the leading principles on which that right is founded. 31. The evils and abuses of the existing system of administration in Oude have gradually impaired the resources of the state, and these causes of decay in the revenues of the country must continue to operate with increased and accelerated effect, and ultimately must disable his excellency from fulfilling his pecuniary engagements with the company. 32. This argument is sufficiently proved by the actual state of the country and government; his excellency has, indeed, in his last letter omitted his accustomed complaints of the state of the country and government; but his repeated declarations to you and to me, respecting the confused condition of his affairs, and the distress and decline of his country, added to my positive knowledge, and to the public notoriety of the fact, justify a serious apprehension of the approaching failure in the resources on which the security for the payment of the subsidy must depend. 33. The punctuality of his excellency's present payments, on which his excellency founds a conclusion, that the necessity of a territorial cession is altogether precluded, neither diminishes the apprehension of his speedy failure, nor in any degree affects the right of the company to a satisfactory security against the operation of evils, of which the existence is evident, and the effect certain. It is evident, that to refrain from demanding adequate security, until the resources of the country shall actually have failed, would be to defeat all expec 34. His excellency has indeed pledged his private resources, in addition to the resources of the state, for the payment of the arrears of his subsidy, but the extent of his excellency's private resources is uncertain, and while that species of security, from its nature, must be fluctuating and precarious, it must also depend on the resources of the country, and consequently must be affected by the same causes which produce a failure in the payment of subsidy. 35. Neither the letter nor the spirit of the existing treaty could justify the British government in delaying the demand of satisfactory security to a period of time when such a demand must prove al together nugatory. The intention of the contracting parties could not have been to pledge their faith to an impracticable and fruitless stipulation. At the time when the treaty was concluded his excellency considered himself to be bound to secure the company against the evil effects of any possible failure in the payment of the subsidy. 36. On his excellency's accession to the musnud, a hope was entertained that his excellency would improve the resources of the country to a degree amply sufficient to secure the payment of the subsidy against any hazard of failure. 37. The disappointment of that hope cannot exonerate his excellency from a responsibility which the altered state of circumstances hae rendered more urgent. 38. The intention of the British government could not have been to confine its claim of security to a period of time when the resources of the country should be inadequate to the payment of the subsidy, and to relinquish that claim when the approaching failure of the public resources should hazard the irretrievable loss of that important branch of the company's revenue. 39. This right of demanding security is not confined to the extent of seventysix lacks, the amount of the former subsidy it is equally applicable to the funds necessary for defraying the expences of the additional force. The necessity of stationing the additional force in Oude is indisputable, and the consequent rights of the company, under the existing treaty, arise from that necessity. 40. Whatever may be my confidence that his excellency will continue to discharge with punctuality the current kists of subsidy, while he can derive funds for the payment of them from the resources of his country, I cannot forget that the ruinous system of the existing adminis tration, and the destructive operation of the evils, abuses, and oppressions which prevail throughout his country, deprive this excellency of all permanent security for the stability of those resources from which alone he now derives the means of fulfilling his pecuniary engagements with the company. 41. His excellency has virtually destroyed the force of any argument founded on the punctuality of his past payments, by admitting the ruinous state of his country, by acknowledging the apprehension of an impending failure of his resources, and by declaring his own incompetency to remove the causes of those evils. 42. With a view to evade a compliance with the proposition for a territorial security, his excellency has announced, in his letter to me, an expectation of deriving ample profits from bringing the country into a flourishing condition. From an early period after his excellency's accession to the musnud, down to this day, his excellency has never ceased to complain of the disorders and confusion existing in his dominions; but hitherto no effort has been made on his excellency's part to improve the system of his civil administration, or to avert the evils and dangers of which he has expressed his apprehension, and of which he has repeatedly experienced the effects. It has always been evident to me, that those mischiefs were insurmountable by any exertion of his excellency's power. Under a similiar impression his excellency has deliberately avowed his despair of introducing any effectual reform into the system of his administration: after such a course of experience, and after such plain and repeated confessions, under the pressure of accumulated embarrassments, without any increase of power, without any additional means of action, without any change of principle or practice, his excellency, at this moment, suddenly announces an expectation of ample profits, by bringing the country into a flourishing condition. condition. His excellency cannot reasonably hope to induce me, by this unsupported assertion, to rest the interests of the company in the province of Oude on a foundation so precarious and insecure as the expectation of an improvement obstructed by the whole system of his government, and by every relative circumstance in the state of his affairs. 43. His excelllency has further stated, that his expectation of ample profits from the country would be entirely cut off, and that a heavy loss would accrue to him from what he has termed a separation of his territory. 44. His excellency cannot justly apply this phrase to an arrangement which would place a portion of his territory in the hands of those with whose interests his own are indissolubly united, whose justice placed him on the musnud, and whose power now supports him in that exalted station. He cannot reasonably consider it as a separation of territory, and a heavy loss to him, to consent to an arrangement under which the wise and benevolent administration of the honourable company would call forth all the resources of the ceded country, and would apply them to the defence of his remaining dominions, while the happiness and prosperity of the people, subject to the company's government, would be effectually secured. 45. As the districts to be ceded will be taken at the amount of their actual jumma, his excellency's finances would be improved in proportion to the amount by which the actual collections from the districts are inferior to their present jumma. 46. You have demonstrated to his excellency, in your memorial of the 16th March, the advantages which his excellency would derive with respect to the defence and security of his dominions from the local position of the districts proposed to be ceded, and you have proved the fallacy of the illusory expectation professed to be entertained by his excellency, of increasing the produce of those districts under his own management. 47. In discussing this subject with his excellency, you will not fail to place the same arguments in the strongest point of view. 48. In your discussions with his excellency you will advert to the example of his highness the Nizam on a similar, though less urgent, occasion; and you will state to his excellency that, although the hazard of failure in the Nizam's territorial revenues bore no proportion to the dangers which menace the most alarming defalcation in the revenues of Oude, yet the Nizam wisely considered, that by securing the funds for the payment of the subsidiary force beyond the hazard of failure, under a territorial grant, his highness provided the most effectual security for the protection and prosperity of his domi. nions in the Deccan. 49. You will convey to the nawaub vizier my confident expectation, that under circumstances of infinitely greater ur gency, and of more confirmed necessity, his excellency will not neglect to profit by this salutary example. In my reply to his excellency's last letter, which had already been transmitted to you by the Persian translator, I have entered into a detailed discussion of the preceding topics, and I have disclosed to his excellency my unalterable resolution never to recede from the demand of territorial security, if he should still persist in rejecting the terms of the first proposition. 50. Under this decided determination, any further reference to me from Oude is unnecessary; I therefore impower you to act under the instructions contained in this letter, without waiting for additional orders. 51. If, therefore, his excellency should persist in rejecting both propositions, you will inform him that any further remonstrance to me upon this subject will be unavailing:--that you are directed to insist upon the immediate cession of the territorial propused to be transferred to the company; and that in the event of his excellency's refusal to issue the necessary orders for that purpose, you are authorized to direct the British troops to march for the purpose of establishing the authority of the British government within those districts. 52. I trust, however, that the arguments which I have addressed to his excellency, and which you will personally enforce, according to the tenor of this dis patch, will induce his excellency to conform to one of the two propositions submitted to his consideration, and that no necessity will occur of resorting to extremities for the security of the company's rights, and for the preservation of the combined interests of the two states in the province of Oude. 53. I was much gratified to be informed, by his excellency's last letter, that he is prepared to discharge the arrears due on account of the additional troops serving in the province of Oude. You have already been furnished with the documents necessary to enable you to prepare a statement of those arrears, and you have received the communication of my orders to require his excellency's immédiate discharge of the amount. 54. It is my decided opinion, that a proportion of the expences attending the embassy of captain Malcolm, and Mehedy Ally Khan into Persia, is justly chargeable to his excellency's account. The primary object of both those embassies was the security of his excellency's dominions, by averting the long-threatened invasion of Zemaun Shah. 55. Mehedy Ally Khan was dispatched to Persia for that purpose by the government of Bombay, 1798, and was actually successful in exciting the government of Persia to aid the prince Mahmood Shah in the recovery of his possessions; and Zemaun Shah, was in consequence, diverted from carrying into effect those designs against his excellency's possessions in Oude, which have recently been disclosed by the papers found in the palace of the late Tippoo Sultaun. 56. Captain Malcolm has been employed in negotiating an arrangement at the court of Persia calculated to prevent any return of the same danger to his excellency's dominions. His excellency cannot justly dispute the obligation to discharge a proportion of the expences incurred for the express purpose of avert ing from his territories the danger of a formidable invasion. 57. You will hereafter be furnished with a statement of those charges; in the mean time I desire that you will communicate to his excellency my intention of making this demand, 58. You will however inform his excellency, that in the event of his acceptance of the first proposition I shall be ready to take into consideration an equitable modification of the just demand of the company upon him, as well as on acccount of the arrears of subsidy for the additional force serving in Oude, as on account of the charges of both embassies to Persia; and that these demands (in the case supposed) may admit of considerable abatement. I am, &c. &c. (Signed) WELLESLEY. Fort William, e8th April, 1801. My Lord,-Par. 1. I have the honour to acquaint your lordship, that, on the goth instant, I presented to the vizier the letter from your lordship to his excellency, transmitted to me in the Persian translator's dispatch of the 9th instant. 2. In delivering your lordship's letter I merely confined myself to recommending the important subjects discussed in it to his excellency's most serious and dispassionate reflection, and to the expression of my hopes that his excellency would speedily communicate to me his choice of one of the two propositions again offered for his excellency's accept ance. 3. A slight indisposition with which the vizier was affected, and the intervention of the celebration of the Ede, prevented me from requiring another private conference with his excellency until the 26th instant. 4. At that conference his excellency pleaded in excuse, for not having prepared an answer to your lordship's letter, his late and continued indisposition, which had disqualified him from engaging in so arduous an undertaking. Conceiving from this opening of the conversation that his excellency, inattentive to your lordship's remonstrances, was disposed to evade a decisive answer on the two specifie propositions, I referred him to that part of your lordship's letter which represents a detailed reply as unnecessary; and after expatiating on the superior advantages of the first plan, concluded by acquainting his excellency, that it was a duty incumbent on nie, in compliance with your lordship's instructions, to offer to him a second time the two propositions, and to require of his excellency to signify to me his assent to one of them. 5. The language of his excellency's reply, though studiously reserved, was not of a nature to indicate the intention of an open and direct acceptance to either of the propositions; it professed acquiescence to your lordship's pleasure in points where it might be practicable, and regret where his consent could not be voluntarily given. 6. Finding it impossible to extract from his excellency a verbal communication of his sentiments, I determined to address a letter to him which should be be calculated to produce an answer direct to the point of the two propositions. The translation into Persian of my intended letter was nearly completed, when I received one from his excellency, acquainting me that it was in his contemplation to prepare a reply to your lordship's letter, and desiring that I would send, for his perusal, the two propositions. 7. The object of his intimation and desire being evidently to amuse me, since it was owing to his excellency's own particular request, in order to avoid the multiplication of papers on a subject of such importance, that the propositions were not a second time submitted to him in writing, the receipt of his excellency's letter made no alteration in the substance of mine to him, which was this day delivered, accompanied by copies of the two propositions. Copies of it in English and Persian, together with a copy and translation of his exeellency's letter to me, I have the honour to transmit with this dispatch, 8. Should his excellency offer to me a letter for your lordship, either eluding an acceptance of either of the propositions, or absolutely rejecting both, I shall think it my duty to resist the dispatch of it by the most forcible arguments that shall occur to me. Amongst which, I shall submit to his excellency's reflections, whether, if his perseverance in refusing both propositions should compel your lordship to resort to decisive steps for the purpose of averting those evils which must inevitably flow from such a determination in his excellency, it will not be consistent with your lordship's wisdom, energy, and comprehensive justice, to reject all measures for the improvement of the resources of his country, and for promoting the happiness and security of its inhabitants, which should be partial in their extent, and confined in their effects; and to adopt that plan which combines the most advantages to every party interested in the prosperity of Oude, and which in its operation, would be sure, general, and effectual. 9. I was inclined to have introduced this reasoning in the letter now addressed to his excellency; but wished to make trial of another effort for procuring his acquiescence to the first proposition, before giving his excellency cause to suppose that the hope of it was abandoned. I have the honour to be, &c. &c. (Signed) True Copy. N. B. EDMONSTONE, Secrectary to Government. Lucknow, 29th April, 1801. Translation of a letter from his excel- 28th April, 1801. After compliments, My mind is bent upon writing a reply to his excellency the most noble the marquis Wellesley's friendly letter; and in the course of a few days, when my answer shall be prepared, it shall be sent to you. His lordship having signified to me that he had desired you again to submit to me the two propositions, I have to request that you would accordingly send them to me for my perusal. True translation. Resident at Lucknow. (Signed) N. B. EDMONSTONE, Secretary to government. To the Vizier. Dated the 15th of Zeebije, or 29th April, 1801. Par. 1. It is now nine days since I did myself the honour of presenting to your excellency a letter from his excellency the most noble the governor-general. 2. The points discussed in that letter, whether viewed as connected with the prosperity of this country, as eventually affecting the happiness of your excellency, or as involving the interests of the company in Oude, are of such magnitude and importance, that I cannot allow myself to suppose that they have not engaged your excellency's most serious and deliberate reflection. 3. It was, however, with extreme surprise and concern that I learned from your excellency's conversation of the 26th instant, that you had not come to any determination on the subject of his lordship's letter. The two propositions formally submitted to your excellency's consideration are therein renewed in so decided and solemn a manner, that it is impossible for your excellency to conceive that a second rejection of both can be accepted as an answer to the alternative proposed. 4. Upon this consideration, therefore, in again offering to your excellency, in compliance with the orders of the |