I had with
much difficulty procured and purchased a small quantity of rice, for the
use of myself, my family, and attendants, and with a view of sending off
the greatest part of the latter to the northern countries, with a little
subsistence in their hands. But what must your surprise be, when you
learn that even this rice was seized by Lord Macartney, with a military
force! and thus am I unable to provide for the few people I have about
me, who are driven to such extremity and misery that it gives me pain to
behold them. I have desired permission to get a little rice from the
northern countries for the subsistence of my people, without its being
liable to seizure by your sepoys: this even has been refused me by Lord
Macartney. What must your feelings be, on such wanton cruelty exercised
towards me, when you consider, that, of thousands of villages belonging
to me, a single one would have sufficed for my subsistence!
* * * * *
22d March, 1783. _Translation of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the
Chairman and Directors of the East India Company_. Received from Mr.
James Macpherson, 1st January, 1784.
I am willing to attribute this continued usurpation to the fear of
detection in Lord Macartney: he dreads the awful day when the scene of
his enormities will be laid open, at my restoration to my country, and
when the tongues of my oppressed subjects will be unloosed, and proclaim
aloud the cruel tyrannies they have sustained.
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