conform to the directions he might receive from Major-General Wellesley ;" and by his Lordship's further commands of the 9th July, the Resident at Baroda was to be informed, that "the British troops, and those of our Allies, stationed in the dominions of the Guickwar, were to be considered to form a part of the army under Major-General Wellesley's command, which the Resident was to communicate to Lieutenant-Colonel Woodington, the officer locally in the command, with instructions to obey any orders from Major-General Wellesley; and that General Nicolls (the commanding officer of the forces) should instruct all the officers in command of troops on detached service under the authority of Bombay to consider themselves subject to the orders of Major-General Wellesley;" all which was immediately ordered accordingly. 2. Under date the 18th of July General Wellesley advised the Governor of Bombay, that "the troops serving in the territory of the Guickwar, being included in those placed under his command, he desired to be furnished with returns and other requisite information respecting them, as likewise with a sketch of the Guickwar's territory, and a topographi, cal account of the country, and its communication with the seacoast and with the territories lately ceded to the Company by the Peishwa, from the immediate contiguity of which last with the Guickwar country, it was the Major-General observed) absolutely necessary that the troops in the one should assist the troops of the other in case of need;" wherefore it was to be observed, in "accordingly desirable, that the officer in command in the Company's territories, should communicate with him, and with the officer in command in the territories of the Guickwar, and final. ly, that orders should be given to the commanding officer in the territories of the Guickwar to be prepared to attack Baroach without loss of time," all which was punctually done, (the instructions respecting Baroach having been anticipated by this government); and the Governor had the pleasure, under date the 23d of July, to forward to the Major-General not merely a return of the troops the last-mentioned station, but under the two divisions of the Company's own territories of Bombay and of Surat, with every detailed information which he thought could prove useful to the General, who was on this occa sion advised, that with Major Walker (the Resident at the Dur. bar or court of Baroda) had hitherto rested the charge of autho rizing all movements of the Bri tish subsidized force in Guzerat, and (as directed by the Supreme Government, under date the 12th of September 1802)" the defence of the Rajah's dominions, the immediate commanding offi cer being Lientenant Colonel Woodington, to whom, however, this Government issued no orders as to the movement of the troops there, but through the Resident:" a system and observance which had produced sundry effects very advantageous in that quarter to the public service. 3. It was next explained to the Honourable General Wellesley, that the military at Surat, where on are dependent the districts comprehended in that part of Guzerat 86 Guzerat, which, under the denomi nation of the Attavesy, lie to the southward of the Taptee river, had, by the express directions of his Excellency the Most Noble the Governor General in Council, been placed under the command of a lieutenant governor, which office was then put in commission, and discharged as far as related to its political and military functions by a committee, composed of the acting Lieutenant Governor, the Judge of the city, and of the senior military officer, viz. Major-General Jones, who alone issued all directions to the troops." 4. The Honourable General Wellesley was also advised, "that orders had now been transmitted to the Committee at Surat, and again to the Resident at Baroda, to communicate with him on the means of ensuring the common defence of their respective limits;" and that "it had been repeatedly enjoined to them to afford aid to each other in case of need." 5. In reply to the communication above abstracted, the HonourableGeneral Wellesley advised the Governor, in a letter under date the 2d, and which reached Bombay on the 10th August, that "the whole range of mountains, extending from Songhur (a frontier fortress appertaining to the Guickwar government in the Attevesy) to its southern limits, being in possession of Bheels, whose exertions would prevent the invasion of any party of marauding horse, the people were therefore to be encouraged and attached to our cause; and the gentlemen of Surat urged to keep on terms with them;" a precaution was accordingly enjoined to the Committee at VOL, 6. Surat, in the manner hereafter 6. The Honourable General 7. General Wellesley next de tails the proposed strength for the several garrisons, and thinks that "the interior revenue duties of the country should be discharged by Sebundy(country militia) raised by the Collectors;"-which has in consequence been carried into effect, as well as the storing the several forts with such provisions, &c. as the General deemed necessary. 8. These measures were all expressly limited to a system of defensive operations, General Wellesley observing that" those of an offensive nature would require different measures, and more extensive arrangement, which must be ordered at the time when these operations are in contemplation." 5. Upon this occasion General Wellesley observed, that as by the orders of his Excellency the Governor General of the 9th of July, "the troops in those districts were to be placed under his of. ders," he imagined that Major General Jones, the commanding I T officer other. officer at Surat, would return to ticipating in the functions of the Bombay; where General Jones has since accordingly remained, although the terms of the Most Noble the Governor General's letter, on which the Honourable General Wellesley's intimation to the above effect is founded, do not extend to the command at Surat, but only to the Guickwar's possessions; in like manner as the Governor of Bombay had already been invited to express his opinion to the Honourable General WelJesley, under date Sth August, in consequence of that officer's desiring to have his (the Governor's) sense of the extent of the command assigned to him by the Supreme Government, whose instructions (as hitherto notified from Marquis Wellesley) did not appear to extend to sever the military government of the ancient English factory and settlement of Surat from our ordinary jurisdiction, as established by Act of Parliament; besides which, the Honourable General Wellesley was, under the date last cited, advised, that "the Committee of Surat had, in the view of giving the fullest effect to his Excellency's instructions of uniting under the Honourable General's direction all the British forces susceptible of being affected by the expected course of hostilities, been instructed to conform to whatever communications he (General Wellesley) may from time to time think fit to make to them." 10. General Wellesley adds in the same letter, that Colonel Murray ought to be desired to attend to the requisitions of the Resident at Baroda, and of the Civil authority at Surat, as far as circumstances will permit him," without admitting of either par 11. Upon this communication from General Wellesley, it was observed, that as it appeared to involve points, in which his construction of the orders from Bengal, as well as of the most expe. dient manner of acting thereun, differed from ours, particularly in what was esteemed the very dangerous experiment of separating the military local controul from the Resident at Baroda, which might risk the subversion of the still immature and (more especially under the recent event of the death of our firm friend the Guickwar Dewan) the very peculiar and complicated, though far from an unpromising system that had been raising in that country during the last two years; still as not only the military but political controul and direction of that territory stands expressly vested by his Excellency Marquis Wel les ey, in the Honourable General Wellesley, and as the latter had, after due consideration of all the explanation afforded, recommend ed so materially another line of conduct from the purport of the Governor of Bombay's sugges tions, it became clearly both in law and reason our duty to acquiesce in and be guided by the Honourable General's proposition: to the effect of which previously recorded sentiments, as adopted and fully concurred in by our Board at large, the Governor accordingly addressed a letter to that officer on the 12th of August, qualifying, however, and from motives of delicacy softening the terms of it, to avoid the notoriety of our venturing thus to intimate any dissent to the Honourable General's plan; since with regard to the Honourable! General himself it was not sup posed, that aware as he was of our previous sentiments, he could be mistaken in the true sense of the reply in question, which, after referring to the details entered into in the Governor's previous communication of the 23d of July, as pointing to the immaturity and delicate nature of our yet unconfirmed situation in that province, continued to communicate, that our President had only to assure the Honourable General of the entire acquiescence, and sincere and ready co-operation of this Government in the alterations that, under the controul and direction with which he stood by the highest authority fully vested, he (the General) had, in discharge of the duty thence incumbent on him, seen necessary to point out the expediency of; adding, that the appointment of Colonel Murray, whenever his ultimate recommendation of that officer should be received, and the discontinuance of the local authority exercised by the Committee at Surat, and by the Resident at Baroda, might, it was presumed, most conveniently be announced at the same period, a suggestion then meant as an additional indication of this Government feeling itself unable to approve the plan the General had proposed in respect to the entire separation at those stations of the military from the civil authority, involving at Surat the indispensable annulment of the chief function of the Lieutenant Governorship, as established by Lord Wellesley himself in the year 1800. Since, otherwise, there would have been no occasion for the Board to have desired any fur ther recommendation of Colonel Murray, but they would have proceeded at once to appoint him, in pursuance of that part of the Honourable General's letter of the 2d of August, announcing that if we approved of the "Colonel" on the footing of the extensive and. exclusive powers proposed to be vested in him, "he" (the Honourable General) "should recommend him." Such, at least, was our certain intention; and if the terms of our an swer should be deemed by our Superiors insufficiently explicit to convey with adequate decision our sentiments, as previously recorded, a consequence which we certainly had no suspicion of at the time, some allowance may be made in favour of our motives, which feeling the extremely delicate ground on which we stood, were to be able to perform our duty without if possible involving ourselves in discussions on points on which our prescribed line of conduct by the Supreme Govern ment was to obey: meanwhile not a moment was lost in issuing orders to our Military Board, and to all our other departments, for forwarding the objects of Gen. Wellesley's proposed equipments not only for the army in Guzerat, but for the one he himself immediately commanded above the Ghauts, that has, ever since its arrival at Poona, derived from this Presidency extensive supplies in mo` ney, grain, liquor, pontoons, and cattle, &c. which, at whatever distress to ourselves, we have had nothing more at heart than to be able to supply to the utmost extent of our means and credit. 12. Colonel Murray having arrived on the 18th of August from his command at Poona, exT2 treme'y tremely impatient to enter on that of Guzerat including Surat, was little satisfied with being informed that General Wellesley's ultimate recommendation of him had not yet been received; and when, as written under the above mentioned date, it reached Bom bay on the 23d of August, still, since it appeared, much to our sorrow and disappointment, to be founded on the Honourable General's supposition that his plans had the approbation instead of the official acquiescence of this Government, it became necessary (from the General's making this supposed approbation the basis of all proceedings without referring to the controuling powers he was vested with) to be fully explicit, and to enter more at large and without reserve into our inducements for being of a different opinion, and thinking the system he had proposed as in some respects dangerous and in others unnecessary, the former in leaving it to the discretion of the commanding officer how far he should comply with the requisitions from the Resident at Baroda, and in leaving the movements of our subsidized force with the Guickwar altogether independent of and unconnected with the approbation of the said Resident, who was in fact the British Minister at that capital, and the latter as an unnecessary subversion of the system established for the administration of Surat, and of the immediate order of the Supreme Government; and farther also, because the utility did not appear evidently to compensate the inconveniences of uniting the hitherto separate commands of Surat and of the Guzerat as long as (according to General Wellesley's own declaration) a mere system 1 of defence was in contemplation for the further discussion of which several heads of objection we refer to the letter at length from our President under date the 23d of August, and particularly to that part of it which treats of the risk that might be connected with the degradation of the office of Resident at the Durbar of the Guickwar, and the consequent possible failure in the measures that were then in progress under the system that had been sanctioned by his Excellency Marquis Wellesley, and that continued (as we conceived) essentially requisite to preserve and improve our growing ascendency, and to protect the large pecuniary territorial and other interests which our Honourable Employers had at stake in, the Guickwar dominions. Adding, that as, in comparison with the main object, the two other stated grounds respecting Surat, &c. were points of indifference, they would accordingly be readily waved, and this Government would "readily and cordially coincide with the Honourable General in the whole of the proposed system, if he could modify the first so as to preserve the necessary consequence of the Resident at Baroda." 13. In like manner, as with respect to all the preceding parts of this painful correspondence, was his Excellency the Most Noble the Governor General punctually apprized of our President's answer to his Lordship's brother, of the 23d of August," testifying at the same time the sincere regret of this Government that these communications should have thus lengthened out; but submitting, whether under the Governor's previous correspondence with |