Beschreibung:

Manuscript report on the secret alliance between Tipu Sultan and the nawabs of the Carnatic, signed by the author N. B. Edmonstone (1765-1841) as Persian translator to the government of Bengal, dated Fort William, Calcutta, 6 April 1800, written in a neat secretarial hand, 42 bifolia tied through single hole with silk thread, paginated 1-81 (final leaf blank), p. 1 slightly dust-soiled, folio (32 x 20 cm), together with: Howden (John Cradock, 1st Baron, 1759-1839), Manuscript minute on the proposed changes to army regulations following the Vellore Mutiny, signed by Howden as commander-in-chief, Madras, dated Madras, 29 March 1807, written in a neat secretarial hand, 12 bifolia tied through single hole with silk thread, unpaginated, final 3 pp. blank, creased along inner edge, outer leaves slightly nicked and dust-soiled, folio (32.5 x 21.5 cm) First item: original manuscript copy of Edmonstone's report to government of Bengal on the cache of correspondence between Tipu Sultan and his ministers which was found at Seringapatam after the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798-9) and believed to reveal a secret alliance between Tipu Sultan and two successive nawabs of the Carnatic, Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah (1717-1795) and Umdat al-Umara (1748-1801), who were notionally allied with the British. The findings were used to compel Umdat al-Umara's successor Azim ud-Daula to sign the Carnatic Treaty, which ceded control to the British. The report was published as part of governor-general Richard Wellesley's official account in Papers presented to the House of Commons from the East India Company, concerning the late Nabob of the Carnatic (London, 1802, volume 1, section A, enclosure c, pp. 4-18). Edmonstone was appointed chief secretary to the government of India in 1809. Provenance: acquired from William P. Wreden, California, USA, September 1964 (invoice). (2)