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,<x Hu iili iS(/ i / Xi ^o. A ,«- \j /^ ^ 1 /(T UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES B H. DLACKWELLI DO<iKSKI.LKKB 48to51 BkuAD8TKK SELECT LETTERS SULTAN TIPPOO TO VARIOUS PUBLIC FUNCTIONARIES. : SELECT LETTERS OF TIPPOO SULTAN TO VARIOUS PUBLIC FUNCTIONARIES: INCLUDING HIS PRINCIPAL MILITARY COMMANDERS; GOVERNORS OF FORTS AND PROVINCES; DIPLOMATIC AND COMMERCIAL AGENTS; 8^0. 8^0. 8^c. TOGETHER WITH SOME ADDRESSED TO THE TRIBUTARY CHIEFTAINS OF SHANOOR, KURNOOL, AND CANNANORE, AND SUNDRY OTHER PERSONS. ARRANGED AND TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM KIRKPATRICK, Colonel in the Service of the Honorable East-India Compani/. With NOTES and OBSERVATIONS, and an APPENDIX, COKTAININe SEVERAI. ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. JLonDon Printed for Black, Parry, and Kingsbury, Booksellers to the Honorable East-Indi/^ Company, Leadenhall Street; and fur Sown Booth, Duke Street, Portland Place. 181L London : P/iated by Cox, Son, and Baylis, GreatQueeoStteef, Lincoln't-Itin-Fields. T~uA3 > 0= TO THE MOST NOBLE RICHARD, MARaUIS WELLESLEY, KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER; ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE; FORMERLY , GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE BRITISH POSSESSIONS, a> o»- AND o CAPTAIN-GENERAL OF THE BRITISH FORCES, IN INDIA, Sfc. Sfc. Sfc. Sfc. My Lord; It is neither for the ostentatious purpose of gracing the front of my book with an illustrious name, nor, by thus giving it the apparent stamp of your approbation, to promote its favourable reception with the public, that the present work is dedicated to your Lordship. It is equally remote from my intention, either to offer it as a tribute of gratitude for former, or to employ it as a passport to future obligations. The first of these objects would be but feebly answered, and the latter could not, in any degree, be advanced, by such inadequate means. It is a principle of justice, and of justice alone, which has prompted me to address it to your Lordship. am I 6^ DEDICATION. ii I am far from the vanity or presumption of imagining, that the introduction of your name, on this occasion, can be in the least flattering to your Lordship. No, my Lord; I am only anxious to avoid the manifest impropriety of which I should be guilty, if I were to dedicate to any but your Lordship, a Avork, which, in truth, owes, its existence to you. This is no compliment, my Lord, but a mere historical fact for : who does not know that it was your Lordship's political sagacity which penetrated, and your prompt and energetic measures which defeated, the hostile designs of Tippoo Sultan against the British Dominions in India? Who is ignorant, that it was those measures which led to the rapid annihilation of the most formidable power with whom we ever had to cope in that quarter of the globe, and which substituted in its place an order of things, redounding no less to the glory, than conducing to the solid interests, of your country ? To the complete success which, under Divine Providence, crowned the wise and vigorous conduct of your Lordship, in this short but arduous contest, is the public indebted, among other inestimable advantages of the most important and durable nature, for the posses- sion of the archives of Seringapatam. To whom, therefore, can a work, compiled from those archives, be so appropriately addressed, as to him who procured us access to whatever information they con- tain ? Having thus, I presume, satisfactorily established your Lordship's pubUc claim to the present humble tribute, it only remains for me to shew.