Although we have, in obedience to your commands of the 5th January, regularly laid before you our proceedings at large, and have occasionally addressed you upon such points as required your resolutions or orders for our guidance, we still think it necessary to collect and digest in a summary report those transactions in the management of the assigned revenue which have principally engaged our attention, and which, upon the proceeding, are too much intermixed with ordinary occurrences to be readily traced and understood. Such a report may be formed with the greater propriety at this time, when your Lordship, &c., have been pleased to conclude your arrangements for the rent of several of the Nabob's districts. Our aim in it is briefly to explain the state of the Carnatic at the period of the Nabob's assignment,--the particular causes which existed to the prejudice of that assignment, after it was made,--and the measures which your Lordship, &c., have, upon our recommendation, adopted for removing those causes, and introducing a more regular and beneficial system of management in the country. Hyder Ali having entered the Carnatic with his whole force, about the middle of July, 1780, and employed fire and sword in its destruction for near eighteen months before the Nabob's assignment took place, it will not be difficult to conceive the state of the country at that period. In those provinces which were fully exposed to the ravages of horse, scarce a vestige remained either of population or agriculture: such of the miserable inhabitants as escaped the fury of the sword were either carried into the Mysore country or left to struggle under the horrors of famine. The Arcot and Trichinopoly districts began early to feel the effects of this desolating war. Tinnevelly, Madura, and Ramnadaporum, though little infested with Hyder's troops, became a prey to the incursions of the Polygars, who stripped them of the greatest part of the revenues. Ongole, Nellore, and Palnaud, the only remaining districts, had suffered, but in a small degree. The misfortunes of war, however, were not the only evils which the Carnatic experienced. The Nabob's aumildars, and other servants, appear to have taken advantage of the general confusion to enrich themselves. A very small part of the revenue was accounted for; and so high were the ordinary expenses of every district, that double the apparent produce of the whole country would not have satisfied them. In this state, which we believe is no way exaggerated, the Company took charge of the assigned countries. Their prospect of relief from the heavy burdens of the war was, indeed, but little advanced by the Nabob's concession; and the revenues of the Carnatic seemed in danger of being irrecoverably lost, unless a speedy and entire change of system could be adopted.