complaints from Company's servants, including soldiers and sailors, that they always have to suffer loss on the Pagodas received from the Company in payment of their wages, when they present them at the bazaar; while the chetties and bankers will never give them 24 fanums for a Pagoda. This matter looks very suspicious, and may have an evil influence on the Company's servants, because it is possible that the chetties have agreed among themselves never to pay the full value for Pagodas, whether they are good or bad. It is also possible that the Company's cashier or banker is in collusion with the chetties, or perhaps there is some reason for this which I am not able to make out. However this may be, Your Honours must try to obtain as much information as possible on this subject and report on it to His Excellency the Governor and the Council of Colombo. All inferior Pagodas found in the Company's Treasury will have to be made good by the cashier at Coromandel, as it was his business to see that none were accepted. With a view to prevent discontent among the Company's servants the tax collectors must be made to pay only in copper and silver coin for the poll tax and land rent, and out of this the soldiers, sailors, and the lower grades of officials must be paid, as I had already arranged before I left. I think that they can easily do this, as they have to collect the amount in small instalments from all classes of persons. The poor people do not pay in Pagodas, and the collectors might make a profit by changing the small coin for Pagodas, and this order will be a safeguard against loss both to the Company and its servants. It would be well if Your Honours could find a means of preventing the Pagodas being introduced and to discard those that are in circulation already, which I have so far not been able to do. Perhaps on some occasion you might find a suitable means.[48]