YOUR affectionate friend, unfeignedly true, having assured you of his attachment, represents, that your kind letter, written after a long interval, having arrived on Thursday the 25th of Shaabaun, in the crisis of my impatient expectation, occasioned much joy and exultation.
It is written by the world-obeyed command, that, after my enjoyment of the royal interview, his majesty will dispatch me to Dekkan, and that I must therefore order my family from Moultaun to Lahore. It cannot be unknown to your generous mind, that, ever esteeming submission to the sacred orders as the means of my lasting honour, I have not an object independant of the approbation of his majesty; but viewing as my chief good whatever I am commanded to do, contrary to the sycophants of fortune, I consult not my personal interest.
However, as I have seen the statement of the jaghire allotted me in Dekkan by the royal orders, which has been transmitted to the chief of viziers, I cannot help being overwhelmed with astonishment and sorrow at my unhappy fate. If it is the royal wish that I should pass my life in privacy, Buggellana, which was originally granted me in perpetuity, is fully sufficient; but if, from favour to his dependant, he will exalt me to the government of an important province, let his majesty so support me, that I may not a second time be humiliated in the eyes of my equals, and of the rulers of Dekkan; or, by being unable to do my duty to the state, become liable to censure and reproof. “I say not, Shew to me generosity or bounty; I am a slave; do that which becomes thyself.”
My sympathizing patroness, a verse strikes me applicable to my situation, with which I trouble you. “If thou, O rose, art all attention to the notes of the nightingale,* hard indeed will be the fate of the dumb inhabitants of the garden.” In short, it is clear to you, my intelligent patroness, that the province of Dekkan is still the same, and I the same person that formerly governed it. I trust, that representing matters to his majesty, you will console me as speedily as possible with a proper reply, that I may send for my family.*