TWO letters, accompanied by your accounts, and dispatched in charge of Hoomajee, Tolârâm, and other Hurkârehs, have passed under our view, and the particulars therein set forth are comprehended.

The special Shûkkeh,* which you obtained and dispatched to us, in answer to the Urzdâsht and Nuzr,* presented, on our part, to the most sacred Presence by Shâh Nizâmûddeen Saheb,* has been received, together with the letters addressed to us by the latter; through whom you must represent to the Presence, “that the newly struck “gold Mohrs were sent by us, merely for the purpose of ascer­taining the pleasure of his Majesty concerning them; which being “now known to us, we have, in conformity with the royal com­mands, inserted his Majesty’s blessed name in the new coin [in “question].” It must, moreover, be stated, “that the manner in “which we heretofore chastised the Nazarenes [i. e. the English] “is too well known to require to be recapitulated; and that now, “again, we are earnestly occupied in punishing certain rulers and “nobles,* who have engaged in measures of evil tendency, and been “guilty of acts utterly repugnant to [the prosperity of] Islâm.” All these particulars you must get communicated to the sublime Presence, through the medium of the Shâh Saheb; by whose means you will also [endeavour to] procure imperial mandates to be written and dispatched to the Nabob, Nizâm ûd Dowlah Behâdûr, and the other Musulman rulers [in this quarter] directing them to unite together in support of the Ahmedy faith.

Here follow some uninteresting details, respecting the pay of the two agents addressed, and of the messengers employed in conveying the dispatches between Seringapatam and Dehli, of which a sufficient specimen has already been given in Letter LXXIII. To defray these, and other charges, a bill for one thousand nine hundred rupees was transmitted with the present letter. Of this sum, nine hundred rupees were directed to be applied to the purchase of five Khilaats (or complimentary dresses) which were ordered to be distributed as follows (each dress being accompanied by a letter, in the terms of that addressed to Mahommed Baig Khân Humdâny, for which see next letter)—

To Mahommed Baig KhânHumdâny, Budl Baig Khân, and Shâh Nizâmûddeen, each a Khilaat of the value of two hundred rupees,

To Kâsim Khân and Siddeek Baig Khân, each a Khilaat of the value of one hundred and fifty rupees.

After these details, the dispatch proceed thus:

The five Khilaats, above-mentioned, must be delivered secretly, and at night, together with this message, viz. “that Nizâm ûd Dowlah, “having united with the Mahrattahs, and engaged in war against us, “and this proceedimg being manifestly contrary to [the interests of] “Islâm, it is due to the support of [our] religion, that you, who are “near the person of his Majesty, the Divine Shadow,* and are more­over Musulman leaders, should pursue such effectual measures as may “[at once] bring the............* to ruin and disgrace, and impart “additional strength to the true Ahmedy faith.”

The letter concludes with directing the agents to send off a pair of Kâsids* once a month; and with stating, that the present dispatch consists altogether of seven letters, namely, the five already specified, an Urzdâsht* [to the address of the Emperor], and a letter to Munsoor Ali Khân*

A note, or memorandum, follows next, of the different Ulkâbs, or addresses, used in the five letters to the persons enumerated above; as also of the particular sort of paper on which each was to be written, and the kind of bag in which they were severally to be enclosed. On this occasion, the precedence appears to be assigned to Mahommed Baig Humdâny, to whom the Sultan writes in terms of entire equality. The others, though honorably addressed, are not equally distinguished.

For the gratification of those curious in such matters, I subjoin the directions relative to the paper and bags.

To Mahommed Baig Humdâny, the paper used was of the kind called Zur­afshâny, or “sprinkled with gold:” the Khureetah, or bag, was of Mehtâby, a sort of silver tissue.

To Budl Baig Khân and Kâsim Khân, silvered paper and Kumkhâb bag.

To the rest, Kumkhâb bags; but paper not specified.

It is evident, from the foregeing letter, that the Nuzr formerly sent by the Sultan to Shâh Allum (see Letter LXXI) had been objected to, because the inscription on the coin, of which it was composed, did not contain the Emperor’s name, which, it seems, was inserted in the gold mohrs, now transmitted. The words, in which the Sultan’s apology for the disrespect alluded to is conveyed, imply that the second Nuzr (or that forwarded with the present dispatch) consisted of the new coinage, with the addition of the Emperor’s name: but if this was actually the case, there is reason to believe that the die was formed expressly for this occasion, and that no more gold mohrs were struck from it, than were required for presentation to his Imperial Majesty.

The apology here tendered by the Sultan, for the affront which he had offered to the Emperor, in the instance of the Nuzr formerly sent to his Majesty, though too flimsy to impose on the Imperial Court, was probably accepted as a sufficient atonement for the offence; since it was now no time for the reduced representative of the royal house of Timur to assume a lofty or inflexible tone in the assertion of any of its rights.

I am unable to say, whether or not the application, here directed to be made to the Emperor, for mandatory letters to the Nabob, Nizâm ûd Dowlah, and the other Musulman chiefs of the Decan, enjoining them to co-operate with the Sultan against the Mahrattahs, was actually submitted to his Majesty; but, con­sidering the situation of Shâh Allum at this time (as described, only the day before, by Tippoo Sultan himself, in his letter to Kûtbûddeen Khan), it is not likely that any attention was paid to it. Indeed, the absurdity of such a proposal to a prince, so completely in the power of Saindeah as the Emperor now was, and who was placed so much out of the reach of any assistance from the proposer, could only be equalled, by the infatuation of employing two Hindoo agents in a nego­ciation, the object of which was to exalt the Mahommedan at the expence of the Brahmenical religion. It was as if a Catholic state or sovereign were to depute a Protestant ambassador to the Pope, for the purpose of engaging his Holiness to exhort all the princes of the Romish persuasion to unite together, for the purpose of making a crusade against some neighbouring power of the reformed religion. So egregious a blunder could be committed only by such an eccentric character as Tippoo Sultan.

The great distance, joined to the difficulties of communication (arising from that and other causes) between Seringapatam and Dehli, sufficiently accounts, perhaps, for the circumstance of the Sultan’s directing the presents, which he thought proper to make to the nobles of the Imperial Court, to be purchased at the metropolis, instead of sending them immediately from himself; which would, no doubt, have been the greater compliment. From the more than usual respect with which the Sultan mentions the Emperor in this dispatch to his agents, it appears probable, that he intended such parts of it as related to his Majesty, to be communicated, if not directly to himself, at least to his ministers.

Mahommed Baig Humdâny had been one of the principal commanders under the celebrated Nujuf Khân; after whose death he obtained, amidst the distractions which followed that event, still greater consideration and authority. He opposed, for some time, a firm resistance to the encroachments of Saindeah in the Dehli quarter; but at length fell, in one of the battles which took place between the Moghul and Mahrattah powers. Budl Baig Khân, Kâsim Khân, and Siddeek Baig Khân, were likewise leaders who had risen to distinction, while Nujuf Khân exercised the chief military authority under the court of Dehli.