HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
55 1 
do you assure the merchants of your country, that they may bring their goods to 
Suez, and sell them without dread or apprehension, and may purchase, in exchange 
for them, such articles as they may wish. 
“ I now send you a letter for our friend Tippoo Sultaun; oblige me by forward¬ 
ing it to his countries.” 
A true Translation. 
(Signed) S. WILSON. 
The Governor-general ( Lord Mornington) orders the Army of Coromandel and 
Malabar to assemble , and his Measures for improving the defensive Alliance. 
The Governor-general, therefore, being decidedly of opinion, that it was ne¬ 
cessary to assemble the armies on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, without 
delay, issued his final orders for this purpose, on the 20th of June, 1798. 
To assemble the army on both coasts, was an indispensable precaution, which 
his Lordship could not have been justified in omitting, from the moment he was 
apprised of Tippoo Sultaun’s offensive engagements with the French, and of the 
landing of a French force at Mangalore; and if circumstances had been favourable 
for such an attempt, it was his fixed determination to have attacked the Sultaun 
instantly, for the purpose of defeating his hostile preparations, and of anticipating 
their declared object. His Lordship was concerned, however, to learn, from 
persons most conversant in military details at Fort St. George, that, notwithstanding 
the distinguished discipline of the army on the coast of Coromandel, and the emi¬ 
nent valour, activity, and skill of its officers, its dispersed state, joined to certain 
radical defects in its establishments, would render the assembling a force, equal to 
offensive movements against Tippoo Sultaun, a much more tedious and difficult 
operation than he had apprehended. 
The necessarily dispersed state of the troops would have been of less importance, 
but for those radical defects, which have in a certain degree, at all times existed. 
These proceed from a system of economy, which precludes the expence of estab¬ 
lishing depots of grain in different parts of our possessions, and of maintaining a 
fixed establishment of draught and carriage cattle; without which, no portion of 
the Madras army, however amply it might have been supplied with every other 
requisite for field operation, was in a condition to act with promptitude and effect. 
