Lord Macartney, in his Minute of the 9th of September last, has been
fully under our consideration. We shall ever applaud the prudence and
foresight of our servants which induces them to collect and communicate
to us every opinion, or even ground of suspicion they may entertain,
relative to any of the powers in India with whose conduct our interest
and the safety of our settlements is essentially connected. At the same
time we earnestly recommend that those opinions and speculations be
communicated to us with prudence, discretion, and all possible secrecy,
_and the terms in which they are conveyed be expressed in a manner as
little offensive as possible to the powers whom they may concern and
into whose hands they may fall._[72]
We next proceed to give you our sentiments respecting the private debts
of the Nabob; _and we cannot but acknowledge_ that the origin and
justice, both of the loan of 1767, and the loan of 1777, commonly called
the Cavalry Loan, appear to us clear and indisputable, agreeable to the
true sense and spirit of the late act of Parliament.
In speaking of the loan of 1767, we are to be understood as speaking of
the debt as constituted by the original bonds of that year, bearing
interest at 10_l._ per cent; and therefore, if any of the Nabob's
creditors, under a pretence that their debts made part of the
consolidated debt of 1767, although secured by bonds of a subsequent
date, carrying an interest exceeding 10_l.
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