YOUR two letters, of the 12th and 14th of Jaafury [25th and 27th June] have been received. You write, “that what Hurry Pundit and “the rest of them propose is, to dispatch Noor Mahommed Khân to us, “and to take an engagement from you to pay down the money [claimed “of us], if, after his departure, there should be any delay in the trans­mission of the same from hence.” It is known. If any message, to the above effect, should be actually sent to you, your answer must be, “that you are our servants, and therefore dare not enter into any “engagement whatsoever without our orders; but that it was most probable, that after Noor Mahommed Khân`s arrival, and when we “should have ascertained from him the [true] state of things, we should “consider the means of transmitting the money.”

You moreover write, “that Râo Râsta has desired you to represent to “us, that the Zemindâr of Nergûnd, having been brought to agree to “the payment of a lack and seventy-five thousand rupees, by way of “amercement, it is wished that we would direct the siege of Nergûnd “to be discontinued.” It is known. The aforesaid Zemindâr has col­lected from our dominions ten lacks of pagodas: waving, therefore, all consideration of an amercement, let him make restitution of what he has levied from our dominions, and then we will certainly raise the siege of Nergûnd.

It is observable, that, in the present dispatch, the Sultan is far from repeating his orders of the 1st July, for the immediate departure of both his agents from Poonah: on the contrary, he seems satisfied with the idea of Noor Mahommed Khân`s return singly, and thereby tacitly approves of the continuance of Mahom­med Ghyâs at his post. His indignation at the behaviour of Hurry Pundit had probably cooled in the interval; but it was soon revived, as we shall see, by a fresh affront from the same quarter. It must be allowed, that the answer directed in the foregoing letter to be returned to the expected message, or proposal, from the Mahrattah ministers, was not much calculated to produce any favorable change in the deportment, either of Hurry Pundit or of his colleagues.