Notwithstanding all the violent acts and declarations of Lord Macartney, yet a consciousness of his own misconduct was the sole incentive to the menaces and overtures he has held out in various shapes. He has been insultingly lavish in his expressions of high respect for my person; has had the insolence to say that all his measures flowed from his affectionate regard alone; has presumed to say that all his enmity and oppression were levelled at my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, to whom he before acknowledged every aid and assistance; and his Lordship being without any just cause or foundation for complaint against us, or a veil to cover his own violences, he has now had recourse to the meanness and has dared to intimate of my son, in order to intimidate me and to strengthen his own wicked purposes, to be in league with our enemies the French. You must doubtless be astonished, no less at the assurance than at the absurdity of such a wicked suggestion. * * * * * IN THE NABOB'S OWN HAND. P.S. In my own handwriting I acquainted Mr. Hastings, as I now do my ancient friends the Company, with the insult offered to my honor and understanding, in the extraordinary propositions sent to me by Lord Macartney, through two gentlemen, on the 10th instant, so artfully veiled with menaces, hopes, and promises. But how can Lord Macartney add to his enormities, after his wicked and calumniating insinuations, so evidently directed against me and my family, through my faithful, my dutiful, and beloved son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who, you well know, has been ever born and bred amongst the English, whom I have studiously brought up in the warmest sentiments of affection and attachment to them,--sentiments that in his maturity have been his highest ambition to improve, insomuch that he knows no happiness but in the faithful support of our alliance and connection with the English nation? 12th August, and Postscript of the 16th August, 1783. _Translation of a Letter to the Chairman and Directors of the East India Company._ Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784. Your astonishment and indignation will be equally raised with mine, when you hear that your President _has dared_, contrary to your intention, to continue to usurp the privileges and hereditary powers of the Nabob of the Carnatic, your old and unshaken friend, and the declared ally of the king of Great Britain.