"I am persuaded that when you reflect upon the merits and pretensions which Sir Robert Barker has to the Company's favour, you will not hesitate a moment to give up the point. If you consider that Mr. Sulivan alone sent you out, in that distinguished station which you now possess, and that his interest is at best become a very precarious one, I am sure your own good sense will prevail upon you not to oppose my appointment; for I must frankly tell you, that, though I am really inclined to do you every service in my power, yet, in this instance, you must not expect the same indulgence from me which you have received from General Carnac." In a subsequent letter he states his disapprobation of Sir Robert Fletcher's receipt of a large present from the King, subsequent to the arrival of the covenants, by which all such sources of emolument were prohibited to public servants. "[36]With regard to the lac of rupees received from the King, I think you ought not to have received it in the manner you did, for three reasons; first, on account of the King's distresses and poverty; secondly, because General Carnac had never received one farthing from his Majesty, whom he had laid under obligations much beyond what you had rendered him; and, lastly, because you knew it was the intent of the Court of Directors that no presents should be received, after the receipt of the covenants, without the consent of the Governor and Council. Indeed, most of the gentlemen of council are under a very severe censure for their accepting of presents after the receipt of the covenants." Lord Clive appears, from some of his letters at this period, not to have been quite satisfied with some parts of the conduct of his friend General Carnac. "You will observe," he writes in a letter[37] to Mr. Sumner, "that the General does not mention a word about the conduct of the officers; and I should not be surprised to find them in a disposition, not only to insist upon Macpherson's appointment, by the Governor and Council being set aside, but also to refuse signing the covenants and submitting to the reduction of batta. However, I am determined totally to subdue this mutinous and unsoldierlike behaviour, which may easily be effected with the assistance of the field officers, as soon as we have concluded a peace with Sujah Dowlah." In a letter written next day to the General, from which I have already quoted, he begs him, if uneasy under the part he is to act, to let the whole weight fall upon _his_ shoulders; concluding with reference to the recent violent representations in the case of the appointment of Captain Macpherson.[38] "If the officers of the army," he observes, "think it concerns their honour to support and countenance so very unmilitary a proceeding, I think it still more concerns my character and reputation to support the dignity and power of the Governor and Council."