182 
DOCUMENTS DELATING TO EGYPT. 
550,000 fcs., of which he personally receives 100,000 fcs. ; a serious 
demand upon an unfortunate administration which has not a sou and 
is heavily in debt/’ 
Why, it may be asked, did Buonaparte take the trouble to ingratiate 
himself with the Sliereef of Mecca? Because he had resolved to make 
use of the Shereef as his postmaster for the transmission of his letters 
to the east. This is shown by the last para, of his letter to the 
Shereef, dated Cairo, 27th Jan. ’99, in which he says :—“ I enclose a 
letter to our friend Tippoo Sultan : oblige me by forwarding it to his 
country.” 1 Poussielgue received an acknowledgment of these letters 
from the Shereef on the 19th March, and another dated Mecca, 24th 
April, the Arabic original of which is given by Sacy. “We have 
duly received letters from General Buonaparte/’ writes the Shereef, 
“to be forwarded to your agent at Mocha, the Imam of Muscat, and 
Tippoo Sultan of Mysore. They have been confided to trusty 
messengers, and, God willing, answers to them will be shortly received.” 
Whatever may have been the will of Heaven, the Shereef himself 
took effectual steps to prevent answers from ever being received. The 
following is the Indian Government’s official translation of Buonaparte’s 
letter to Tippoo. 
“ FRENCH REPUBLIC. 
[Liberty Equality 
Hd.-Qrs., Cairo, 27 Jan. 1799. 
Buonaparte, Member of the National Convention, General-in-Chief, 
to the most magnificent Sultan, our greatest Friend, Tippoo Saib ! 
You have already been informed of my arrival on the borders of the 
Red Sea, with an innumerable and invincible Army, full of the desire 
of delivering you from the iron yoke of England. 
I eagerly embrace this opportunity of testifying to you the desire I 
have of being informed by you, by the way of Muscat and Mocha, as 
to your political situation. 
I would even wish you to send some intelligent person to Suez or 
Cairo, possessing your confidence, with whom I may confer. 
May the Almighty increase your Power and destroy your Enemies. 
[Seal). [Signed) Buonaparte.” 
Appended to this letter is the following note by Captain S. Wilson, 
our Political Agent at Mocha :—Copies of the above letters” (to the 
Shereef and Tippoo) “were given to my Moonshie for me by Shaykh 
Soliman and Mahomed Ameen, the Shereef’s 1st Vizier and 1st 
Secretary. 
(Undated). [Signed) S. Wilson.” 
These documents ’Wilson forwarded to the Governor in Council, 
Bombay. 
We might have acquitted the Shereef of all knowledge of this 
transaction, had the copies of the letters been secretly conveyed by an 
1 “ Correspondence inedite ojficielle et coivfidentielle fyc., de Napoleon.’* Paxis, 1819-20; IV, 
192. 
