_18th July._ This morning M. H. waited upon me, and showed me a communication from the established committee at Hyderabad to this garrison, which called upon them to demand from me an assurance that the orders of the 1st of May would be repealed; and, if that was refused, instructed them to throw off the authority of Government, and make me leave Masulipatam. I went over all the grounds I had done before with this officer; and told him, that if the garrison was so lost to all sense of duty and propriety as to act upon this instruction, I must judge for myself, and take those steps which the emergency demanded. He said, the senior officers, who had sent him, were not disposed to attend to the call made upon them by the Hyderabad Committee; but they, he added, had now little or no control over their juniors, who were decidedly for having recourse to immediate violence. I asked him to what lengths men (who had still some reflection) meant to allow themselves to be borne away with the tide? The hour, I added, was come, when they must decide. I then pointed out the ground on which I thought they might, without injury to their honour, make a stand, and rescue the deluded young men of the army, as well as themselves, from destruction. I expressed my conviction of the men remaining with the senior officers, and that the young men must be reclaimed to reason, or at least be prevented from becoming rebels, if those who were their seniors acted with a becoming spirit. This conference lasted two hours, and M. H. went to communicate with the rest. There was, I understood, a warm discussion for several hours; after which, two of the senior officers waited upon me, and said they had with difficulty prevented the rest from coming to extremes that day; but they had at last agreed to wait six days (till the 24th), when, if they heard nothing favourable to their hopes, they meant to take such steps as they thought calculated to forward the objects they had in view. They at the same time said they had, in consequence of the opinion of their brother officers at other stations, determined to admit no investigation into their past conduct. I observed, that if these were their resolutions we must come to issue at once, and I must take those steps I judged best to counteract their measures, as I considered their proposition of adhering to their duty for a limited period of six days, was nothing less than an open defiance; and their refusal to admit investigation was a measure of the same stamp. I had meant, I said, in conformity with authority I had received from Government, to have entered into the investigation immediately (before the arrival of my colleagues); and I had entertained an intention of proceeding to Madras with the report, in the conviction that this garrison would have remained steady in its duty: but I must now, I added, abandon all such plans, and meet with that firmness which it was my duty to meet it, that dreadful