YOU write, “that you never buy caravan horses.” It is known. But though you never purchase any, you must direct the Silahdârs to do so.
You further write, “that the labourers with you receive their daily “subsistence from the Aumils of the districts which have supplied “them.” But there is no necessity for this. Let them be paid by you, from the day on which they joined you, and as long as they may remain with you.
We have learnt from our beloved son,* Meer Kumrûddeen, that a camel-courier, belonging to Râo Râsta, has arrived with a letter addressed to you and him. Having duly considered the contents thereof, you will dispatch such an answer by the courier, as you shall judge proper.
I was in some doubt, respecting the meaning of Caravan horses, till Colonel Wilks, the author of the admirable History of Mysore, recently published, informed me, that the strings of horses brought for sale by the northern merchants, and others to the south of India, were so called. It would not be easy to guess why Bûrhânûddeen made it a rule (as he would appear to have done) never to buy horses from these dealers. But whatever objection that commander might have to such purchases, the Sultan appears to have had none; as otherwise it is not probable that the merchants would have resorted to his dominions, or that he should have been desirous that the Silahdârs should deal with them.
What is said here of the letter from Râo Râsta, seems to confirm, in some measure, the idea suggested on a former occasion,* viz. that Bûrhânûddeen exercised the chief authority in the army employed at this period on the Mahrattah frontier. His name probably stood foremost in the superscription of Hurry Pundit`s letter; which, on that account, or because he was generally considered as commander-in-chief, was, in the first instance, carried and delivered to him.
The authority given to Bûrhânûddeen, by the last paragraph of the foregoing letter, seems to exceed the usual measure of the Sultan`s confidence in his servants, of whatever rank they might be.