LETTER CCLXXVI.
To MAHOMMED MEHDY, BUKHSHY of the EHSHÂM at SERINGAPATAM;
dated 10th BEHÂRY. (14th May.)

YOU must not suffer any one to come to your house; and whatever business you may have to do, let it be transacted in our Kuchurry. If, nevertheless, people should persist in coming to your house, they shall be deprived of their ears and noses.* Pay strict attention to this order. It is surprising to us, that you should act in opposition to your instruc­tions. Perhaps you have laid them by in the niche of forgetfulness;* and to this may be owing your present contravention of our will and pleasure. Consider what is here said as a strict injunction.

OBSERVATIONS.

This order, if understood literally, would amount to the exclusion of every person from the habitation of the Bukhshy, who might occasionally have private business with him: but though the regulation, directing all public affairs to be transacted in open Kuchurry, and no where else, was rigidly enforced by the Sultan, it can hardly be supposed, that it was meant to extend to the mutual intercourse necessary in the conduct of personal or domestic concerns.* It is not difficult to comprehend the Sultan’s motives for a prohibition of the kind under consideration: but, with respect to the punishment appointed for its infraction, it may be presumed, in the absence of any proof of its ever being actually inflicted, that it was held out only in terrorem.