WE have received your application for letters from us to the Jumaadârs of the enemy’s army. We shall arrive soon in person in that quarter, when, considering this matter duly, we will give our directions [or determine] accordingly.

You request to know our pleasure regarding the pay of your brother, who has been lately raised to the rank of a Risâladâr. The monthly pay of that rank, according to the former regulations of the Jyshe Kuchurry, is ten pagodas, exclusive of an allowance of twelve annas fulmy* for every man mustered.* Let him be paid accordingly.

This letter affords another proof of the strange division of the military authority in the armies of the Sultan. We here perceive a subordinate officer corresponding directly with his sovereign, upon a point of considerable delicacy and importance, which apparently belonged, in a peculiar manner, to the province of the com­mander-in-chief (Bûrhânûddeen). It is true, that the Sultan does not adopt the suggestion of the Sipahdâr; but neither does he hint, that there was any irregu­larity in it.

I am by no means satisfied, that I have correctly translated the paragraph relating to the pay of Syed Ghuffâr’s brother. Either the original is extremely perplexed, or I may not rightly have understood its technical phraseology.