YOUR letter has been received, and its contents are comprehended. What you write, respecting the scarcity of grain, is known. The coun­try of Nugr is near [you]. Send from thence for continual and abun­dant supplies of grain. What is the meaning of your loitering in one place with such an army [as you have]? You should take ten days provisions, and moving rapidly, in different directions, ten and twenty coss [at a time], seize an opportunity of striking some signal blow against the enemy. We have sent [similar] orders on this subject to the Sipahdârs, &c.

Phurnaveese [i. e. Nana, the Mahrattah minister] is gone [back] to Poonah. It is most probable that their army, too, will, by the time the river swells, break up, and return discomfited and beaten.

Remove the son of Hukeem Khân from the command of his Risâla, and place him in confinement.*

It is true, that Nana Phurnaveese returned to Poonah some time about the end of May; and I believe that, either previously to his leaving the Mahrattah army, or immediately after his departure, the fort of Bâdâmy surrendered. Of this event, however, no trace is discoverable in the correspondence.

If Hukeem Khân be meant for Abdûl Hukeem Khân, the Nabob of Shânoor, (which I conceive to be the case) this passage shows, that the breach between him and the Sultan had now become irreparable, and that the Patan had, probably, declared openly in favor of the Mahrattahs. We also learn from it, that a son of this chieftain actually held, at this time, a military command in one of the corps of the army under Bûrhânûddeen (possibly a battalion of an infantry Kushoon); for the form of the expression in the original will hardly admit of our supposing that the Risâla, in question, was a body of troops furnished by the Patan for the service of the Sultan.