Select letters of Tippoo Sultan to various public functionaries ..

1811·29.3 MB·English

by  Tipu Sultan, Fath Ali, Nawab of Mysore, 1753-1799

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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.
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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,
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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
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DEDICATION.
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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.