On our minutes of the 21st January we treated the subject of the assignment at some length, and pointed out the mischiefs which, in addition to the effects of the war, had arisen from what we conceived to be wrong and oppressive management. We used the freedom to suggest an entire alteration in the mode of realizing the revenues. We proposed a considerable and immediate reduction of expenses, and a total change of the principal aumildars who had been employed under the Nabob. Our ideas had the good fortune to receive your approbation; but the removal of the Nabob's servants being thought improper at that particular period of the collections, we employed our attention chiefly in preserving what revenue was left the country, and acquiring such materials as might lead to a more perfect knowledge of its former and present state. These pursuits, as we apprehended, met with great obstructions from the conduct of the Nabob's servants. The orders they received were evaded under various pretexts; no attention was paid to the strong and repeated applications made to them for the accounts of their management; and their attachment to the Company's interest appeared, in every instance, so feeble, that we saw no prospect whatever of success, but in the appointment of renters under the Company's sole authority. Upon this principle, we judged it expedient to recommend that such of the Nabob's districts as were in a state to be farmed out might be immediately let by a public advertisement, issued in the Company's name, and circulated through every province of the Carnatic; and, with the view of encouraging bidders, we proposed that the countries might be advertised for the whole period of the Nabob's assignment, and the security of the Company's protection promised in the fullest manner to such persons as might become renters. This plan had the desired effect; and the attempts which were secretly made to counteract it afforded an unequivocal proof of its necessity: but the advantages resulting from it were more pleasingly evinced by the number of proposals that were delivered, and by the terms which were in general offered for the districts intended to be farmed out. Having so far attained the purposes of the assignment, our attention was next turned to the heavy expenses entailed upon the different provinces; and here, we confess, our astonishment was raised to the highest pitch. In the Trichinopoly country the standing disbursements appeared, by the Nabob's own accounts, to be one lac of rupees more than the receipts. In other districts the charges were not in so high a proportion, but still rated on a most extravagant scale; and we saw, by every account that was brought before us, the absolute necessity of retrenching considerably in all the articles of expense.