Accounts were received this evening of the assembly of a force at Madras. I anticipated the feeling this would make, and stated to an officer present, when I received the letter, my conviction, that it was in consequence of the many, and perhaps exaggerated, reports of intended mutinies that had been consequent to that of Masulipatam. _20th July._ General Pater arrived. I went to meet him, gave him a return of the garrison, and made a full and confidential report of all past proceedings. I found that the officers of standing, to whom I had spoken so much on the danger of allowing young men to take such a lead in the present discussions, had taken advantage of the good disposition of the moment, as to carry a resolution, that the garrison committee, which were mobbish meetings of the whole of the officers, should be abolished, and the proceedings to be entirely carried on by the eleven senior officers, by whose judgment all questions were in future to be decided, and who were entirely to act for themselves, and not to follow the instructions of other committees, or be influenced by the voice of any person not a member of the committee. This measure I considered as the first great step towards a return to reason and temper. I received an invitation from the garrison to dine with them on the 22d. All the gentlemen, civil and military, were invited to meet. _21st July._ All was quiet. I received this day the most unequivocal proofs of the desire of some of the senior officers to return to the right path, if furnished with any ground on which they could absolve themselves from the deep pledges they had made, and assert their right to control their juniors. _22d July._ General Pater looked at the regiment on parade, and afterwards went, accompanied by his staff, to breakfast with Lieutenant-Colonel Innes.