YOUR letter has been received. We highly approve of your having placed the Kushoon of the Sipahdâr, Mahommed Ali, with Bûrhânûddeen: in the room of which you must take Shaikh Unser [and his corps]; that commander and his men being intelligent and well instructed.

You should open a negociation with the garrison of Nergûnd, through the Kilaadâr of Bâdâmy, or the Kâzy of Tûrkul, or through any other channel; and endeavour, by some means or other, to obtain speedy possession of the fort.

The reader will recollect, that the measure, for the execution of which Kum­rûddeen is here commended, did not originate with him, but had been directed by the Sultan, and a compliance with it evaded, in the first instance, by the Meer.

I am inclined to infer, from the instructions here given to Kumrûddeen for opening a negociation with the garrison of Nergûnd, that the Sultan sometimes addressed his orders to one, and sometimes to another of the two commanders employed against that place, and that they were in the habit of communicating such orders to each other. It would be difficult, indeed, on any other supposition, to account for such an order as the present one being apparently addressed to Kumrûd­deen exclusively; since there can be very little doubt that Bûrhânûddeen took the lead, at least, in all political, if not also in all military movements, connected with the general command of the army now advanced towards the Mahrattah frontier. It is, on the other hand, possible, that similar instructions to those under consideration may have been addressed directly to Bûrhânûddeen, although no entry, to that effect, appears in the correspondence.