183^5;] Biographical shetch of Col. MacJmizie. 365 



in tlie regular course of reply to letters from you in this 

 department, we were prevented by the pressure of other 

 aiFairs from entering into the consideration of the sub- 

 ject which occupied your letter of the 14th March, 

 3,807, namely, the services of Lieutenant- Colonel Colin 

 Mactkenzie in the survey of Mysore, and certain pro- 

 vinces adjacent to it. 



3. Having now reviewed with attention the whole of 

 that subject, as it is detailed in the letter just mentioned, 

 and the papers which accompanied it, and in the various 

 documents which are referred to in your subsequent ad- 

 vices of the 29th February, 21st, 24th, and 26th Octo^ 

 ber, 1808, we feel it to be due to Lieut. -Colonel Mac» 

 kenzie; and it is a great pleasure tons to bestow our 

 unqualified and warm commendation upon his long-con- 

 tinued, indefatigable, and zealous exertions in the ardu- 

 ous pursuits in which he was employed, and upon the 

 works which those exertions have produced. He has 

 not confined his labours to the leading object of his ori- 

 ginal appointment, and in itself a very difficult one, the 

 obtaining of an accurate geographical knowledge of the 

 extensive territories which came under the dominion or 

 protection of the company, in consequence of the fail of 

 Tipu Sultan in 1799, but has carried his researches in- 

 to two other very important branches,, the statistics 

 and the history of those countries ; and in all of them he 

 has succeeded to an extent which could not have been 

 contemplated at the commencement of his undertaking. 



4. The actual survey, upon geometrical principles, of 

 a region containing above 40,000* square miles, gene- 

 rally of an extremely difiicult surface, fail of hills and 



* In addition to this the ceded districts have since been com- 

 pleted on the same plan, containing about 30,000 S(iuare miies, . 

 with maps, &c. without any consideration for Colonel Mackenzie's} 

 direction of that work, and sent home toEDghiad in January Ij^iG.. 



