When Lieutenant Forbes was directed to proceed to Penang, and a party of marines, under Lieutenant Maitland, to be in readiness to embark on board the Fox frigate, no idea appears to have been entertained of opposition to these orders. Though the officers of the corps felt, that Lieutenants Forbes and Maitland being particularly ordered on these duties could only be as a punishment, and to avoid the stigma which they conceived this proceeding would bring upon the corps, they solicited Lieutenant-Colonel Innes to allow other officers to exchange with Lieutenant Maitland and Lieutenant Forbes, and at the same time assured him there was not an officer in the regiment that was not ready to take the tour of duty. This application (which proves the officers had no intention at that period of resisting the orders of Government,) was refused by Lieutenant-Colonel Innes, for reasons stated in his note to me of the 22d July, which forms a number of the Appendix. Before the orders were received at Masulipatam for an increased number of marines embarking on board his Majesty's ships Piedmontese and Samarang, the minds of the officers of that garrison had been much inflamed by communications they had received from the different stations of the army. These expressed (agreeable to the statement of Captain Andrews and Captain Kelly) a general opinion of the illegality of the orders regarding Lieutenant Forbes and Lieutenant Maitland, and of the unjust manner in which the Madras European regiment had been treated. It was also reported from a variety of quarters, that the regiment was to be dispersed and disbanded: and these reports obtained, from the nature of preceding occurrences, a very ready belief both among the officers and men of the corps. There can, however, be no doubt that the garrison at Masulipatam, as well as other stations with which they communicated, contemplated the detachment of so large a party as that ordered from the European regiment, as a serious diminution of their strength, and consequently injurious to the interests of the confederacy against Government, in which they were so deeply engaged; and that this consideration in some degree influenced them to that criminal course which they pursued: but I do not believe that this motive, unaided by others, would have led them at that moment to so bold and daring an opposition to orders.