The mutiny which an imprudent measure of Government (the particulars of which will be hereafter stated) brought on at Masulipatam, was one of the first acts of open violence committed by the officers on the coast establishment. As the Governor of Fort St. George thought it might be quelled by means short of coercion, he directed me to proceed to that garrison, in the hope that I should recall the officers to their duty. But his other measures ill accorded with the avowed principles of that conciliatory and moderate proceeding. It had long been reported throughout the army, that Government intended to make such a distribution of the native corps as would place them under the complete check of his majesty's regiments. The alarm, and indeed despair, caused by this report, were excessive and general. The numerous officers of the Company's army who had become engaged in guilty combinations, thought their destruction was certain, and that union and resistance offered the only hope of safety. It might not have been the intention of Government to make such an impression; but is it not clear to the most common understanding which reflects on what had passed, and the actual state of feeling in the army, that this impression must have been produced[10]? Was it not evident that the mutiny at Masulipatam had been caused by the mere rumour of this intention on the part of Government? And could it be expected by the most weak, or infatuated, that the actual execution of this plan would not produce the same effect in a situation such as Hyderabad, where the spirit of disaffection was more violent, and the power of resistance as great, if not greater. It is hardly possible to make any other conclusion, but that those who advised this measure foresaw the result, and thought that such an act of open disobedience would give the colour of unavoidable necessity to the extreme measures[11] which they then contemplated. It produced its natural effect--the order for the march of the 2d battalion of the 10th regiment from Hyderabad to Goa was disobeyed, and the Company's officers at that station forced down a precipice of guilt, at which, in spite of their violent language, they shuddered. This act of open disobedience, accompanied by a violent and seditious paper styled their _Ultimatum_[12], which they transmitted to the Governor, constituted the immediate grounds upon which Government adopted the extreme measure of the 26th of July, of calling upon all the European officers of the native corps to sign a test of their fidelity, and, on their refusal, of separating the officers from their men.