Page:Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency.djvu/39

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IVAJ^ WITH HA WAR A LI 31

determined to compel him to deliver what they considered as their own property. They ordered Lord Cornwallis to intimate to him that the}^ were willing to discharge their arrears of peshcush, and to pay it regularly in future, but that the restoration of Guntiir must be the price ; and that, in case of refusal or delay, their troops would enter the province in fourteen days.

' Colonel Edinojton, with a detachment of a reofiment of Europeans and four battalions of sepoys, being already arrived on the boundary of the Company's territory, on the 9th of September [1788], Captain Kennaway, from Calcutta, presented to the Nizam a paper, containing a demand of the surrender of the Circar, a promise of a faithful discharge of all arrears, as well as regular payment hereafter, and notifying the time limited for the advance of the Company's troops. The Nizam, unable singly to contend with such an antagonist, and despairing of assistance from any of the country powers, (for Tipii was unwilling to make any movement without the co-operation of France, and the Marathas were employed in expelling a usurper, and reinstating Shah Alam on the throne of Delhi,) submitted to the terms imposed upon him. He instantly issued orders for his forces to evacuate Guntiir, but, at the same time, protested against the violence and injustice of the Company. " They ought," he said, " to have paid their arrears previous to their insisting on the restoration of the country ; — and what security have I," he asked, " that they will be