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APPENDIX. A.
OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE

THE LANDHOLDERS' AND COMMERCIAL ASSOCIATION

To E. H. Lushington, Esq.

Secy, to the Government of Bengal.

SIR,

I am directed by the General Committee of the Association to beg that you will inform them if it was with the sanction and authority of the Government of Bengal, that a publication entitled "Nil Durpan" has been circulated through means of the Post Office under the official frank and seal of the Bengal Secretariat.

I myself have seen an envelope containing that publication so franked and circulated, and, therefore, there can be no doubt of the fact. If it has been done without the sanction or knowledge of the Government of Bengal, the committee will expect a formal and official disavowal of the proceeding, and that the names of the parties who have thus made use of the name and means of Government to circulate a foul and malicious libel on Indigo Planters, tending to excite sedition and breaches of the peace, be given to us in order that they may be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant,


  (Signed.) W. F. Fergusson.
  Secy. Landholders' & Commercial
Calcutta, the 25th May, 1861. Association of British India.

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