“Accordingly, after lodging my pagodas and rupees along with the rest in the hands of Omychund, the Gentoo merchant, who was a man of great wealth and credit, I set out in company with some diamond merchants who were going to Golconda. My curiosity was amply gratified by the sight of these celebrated mines; and I determined that, when I returned to Europe, I would write a description of them. This description, however, I shall spare you for the present, and proceed with my story.
“The diamond merchants with whom I travelled had a great deal of business to transact at various places; and this was the cause of much delay to me, which I could scarcely bear with patience; for now that I had gratified my curiosity, I was extremely desirous to return to Madras with my little treasure. The five years’ salary due to me by the East India Company, which I had never used, I had put out at interest at Madras, where sometimes the rate was as high as twelve per cent.; and if you knew (said Mr. Jervas, addressing himself to the miners at Mr. R——‘s table) any thing of the nature of compound interest, you would perceive that I was in a fair way to get rich: for, in the course of fourteen or fifteen years, any sum that is put out at compound interest, even in England, where the rate of legal interest is five per cent., becomes double; that is, one hundred pounds put out at compound interest, in fourteen years, becomes two hundred. But few people have the patience, or the prudence, to make this use of their money. I was, however, determined to employ all my capital in this manner; and I calculated that, in seven years, I should have accumulated a sum fully sufficient to support me all the rest of my life in ease and affluence.
“Full of these hopes and calculations, I pursued my journey along with the merchants. Arrived at Devanelli Fort, I learned that the Soubha, with whom the sultan had been going to war, had given up the territory in dispute, and had pacified Tippoo by submissions and presents. Whether he chose peace or war was indifferent to me: I was intent on my private affairs, and I went immediately to Omychund, my banker, to settle them. I had taken my diamond ring with me to the mines, that I might compare it with others, and learn its value; and I found that it was worth nearly treble what I had been offered for it. Omychund congratulated me upon this discovery, and we were just going to settle our accounts, when an officer came in, and, after asking whether I was not the young Englishman who had lately visited the mines of Golconda, summoned me immediately to appear before the sultan. I was terrified, for I imagined I was perhaps suspected of having purloined some of the diamonds; but I followed the officer without hesitation, conscious of my innocence.
“Tippoo Sultan, contrary to my expectations, received me with a smiling countenance; and, pointing to the officer who accompanied me, asked me whether I recollected to have ever seen his face before? I replied, No: but the sultan then informed me that this officer, who was one of his own guards, had attended me in disguise during my whole visit to the diamond mines; and that he was perfectly satisfied of my honourable conduct. Then, after making a signal to the officer and all present to withdraw, he bade me approach nearer to him; paid some compliments to my abilities, and proceeded to explain to me that he stood in farther need of my services; and that, if I served him with fidelity, I should have no reason to complain, on my return to my own country, of his want of generosity.
“All thoughts of war being now, as he told me, out of his mind, he had leisure for other projects to enrich himself; and he was determined to begin by reforming certain abuses, which had long tended to impoverish the royal treasury. I was at a loss to know whither this preamble would lead: at length, having exhausted his oriental pomp of words, he concluded by informing me that he had reason to believe he was terribly cheated in the management of his mines at Golconda; that they were rented from him by a Feulinga Brahmin, as he called him, whose agreement with the adventurers in the mines was, that all the stones they found under a pago in weight were to be their own; and all above this weight were to be his, for the sultan’s use. Now it seems that this agreement was never honestly fulfilled by any of the parties: the slaves cheating the merchants, the merchants cheating the Feulinga Brahmin, and he, in his turn, defrauding the sultan; so that, Tippoo assured me, he had often purchased, from diamond merchants, stones of a larger spread and finer water than any he could get directly from his own mines; and that he had been frequently obliged to reward these merchants with rich vests, or fine horses, in order to encourage others to offer their diamonds {Footnote: Philosophical Transactions, vol. ii. p.472.} for sale.
“I could not but observe, whilst Tippoo related all this, the great agitation of his looks and voice, which showed me the strong hold the passion for diamonds had upon his soul; on which I should perhaps have made some wise reflections, but that people have seldom leisure or inclination to make wise reflections when standing in the presence of a prince as powerful and as despotic as Tippoo Sultan.
“The service that he required from me was a very dangerous one; no less than to visit the mines secretly by night, to search those small cisterns in which the workmen leave the diamonds mixed with the sand, gravelly stuff, and red earth, to sink and drain off during their absence. I by no means relished this undertaking: besides that it would expose me to imminent danger, it was odious to my feelings to become a spy and an informer. This I stated to the sultan, but he gave no credit to this motive; and, attributing my reluctance wholly to fear, he promised that he would take effectual measures to secure my safety; and that, after I had executed this commission, he would immediately send a guard with me to Madras. I saw that a dark frown lowered on his brow, when I persisted in declining this office; but I fortunately bethought myself at this moment of a method of escaping the effects of his anger, without giving up my own principles.
“I represented to him that the seizure of the diamonds in the cisterns, which he proposed, even should it afford him any convincing proofs of the dishonesty of the slaves and diamond merchants, and even if he could in future take effectual precautions to secure himself from their frauds, would not be a source of wealth to him equal to one which I could propose. His avarice fixed his attention, and he eagerly commanded me to proceed. I then explained to him that one of his richest diamond-mines had been for some time abandoned; because the workmen, having dug till they came to water, were then forced to stop for want of engines such as are known in Europe. Now, having observed that there was a rapid current at the foot of the mountain, on which I could erect a water-mill, I offered to clear this valuable mine.”