WE have heard, that a Mahrattah Vakeel has resided, for some time past, at that place [i. e. Pondicherry]. As this circumstance is not suitable to the friendship subsisting between the Sircar [i. e. us] and the Râjah of the French, we therefore write to desire, that the aforesaid [Vakeel] may be dismissed, and not allowed to remain [there any longer]. What more shall be written?

The style of this letter must be admitted to be sufficiently arrogant and pe­remptory; and was, certainly, but ill calculated to conciliate the good-will of the French governor, however it might serve to impress others with a high notion of the power of the writer. Either the Sultan must have trusted greatly to M. Cossigny’s ignorance of the Persian language, as well as of the respect due to his rank and station; or else so deep and inveterate must his dislike to Europeans or Christians of every denomination, whether friends or foes, have been, that he could not always abstain from letting it appear in his intercourse with them, even when it was palpably (as in the present case) his interest so to do. It may indeed be doubted, whether he hated the French less than the English: and however he might wish and hope to render the former subservient to his views against the latter, still he would never seem to have forgotten, that they were both Nazarenes, and enemies of the true faith; and, consequently, alike the just objects of his abhorrence and contempt.

I do not possess the means of ascertaining what degree of attention, if any, was paid by the French governor to the extraordinary demand contained in the foregoing letter.