WE send herewith three letters, and two statements of receipts and disbursements, received from Meer Kâzim: read and keep them carefully by you.
You are to sell rice, &c. [freely] to every merchant from Muscat, who brings you a chitty [or certificate] from Meer Kâzim.
The above-mentioned [i. e. Meer Kâzim] instead of sapphires, has bought and sent on our vessels a quantity of rock-salt. What sort of a thing is the said rock-salt: and is there any consumption of it in this country or not? Communicate [to us] every particular regarding it. Meer Kâzim writes, that he has sent a sample of it: let the said sample be forwarded to us.
It would appear, from the beginning of Letter CCLVIII, that Meer Kâzim had actually dispatched some cargoes of rock-salt; while, from the concluding sentence of Letter CCLIX it might be inferred, that he had sent only a sample of it. However this might be, it is curious enough to observe the Sultan, in one and the same moment, enquiring the nature of the commodity in question; acknowledging himself ignorant, whether or not there was any demand for it among his subjects; and yet directing it to be shipped for Mysore, by every opportunity.