WHAT you have written, relative to your having paid twenty thousand rupees to Meer Zynûl Aabideen, the Foujdâr of Zuferâbâd, is under­stood, and meets our approbation. You must, in like manner, discharge the remaining balance due by you. Upon your arrival at the Presence, we will personally state all matters to you. Tillicherry is situated near the Taalûk of that refuge of chastity:* you will, therefore, regularly transmit to us whatever intelligence you may [from time to time] be able to procure from thence.

Ali Râjah Beeby was the same person, whom the English, in the west of India, sometimes dignified with the title of Queen of Cannanore, of which petty state she was the hereditary ruler. I am ignorant, at what period Cannanore became tributary to the Mysore chief: but it continued so till the cession of Malabar to the English, by the partition treaty of 1792; when all the rights and authority claimed by Tippoo Sultan in that province, were transferred to the East-India Company.

Ali Râjah Beeby was a Mahommedan; and on this account, perhaps, was treated by the Sultan with somewhat more distinction and lenity, than he was accustomed to show to his other tributaries in Malabar. He would not seem, however, to have succeeded in his endeavours to conciliate her good-will, or to inspire her with confidence in him. This fact is deducible from the constant repugnance, which she evinced to complying with his desire of seeing her at Seringapatam; and which will appear, on more than one occasion, in the course of the subsequent correspondence.