Mss Eur F126/82, ff 34-41

Letter, marked private, requesting that Pelly explain to Andrew Richard Scoble and Jonathan Duncan Inverarity that although the case is to be treated as an ordinary criminal trial, there are political circumstances connected to it which cannot be introduced into a trial for the purpose of proving motive in the attempted poisoning.

The letter goes on to inform Pelly that his letter was published in the Gazette, and it is hoped it will satisfy those interested parties that Pelly had not gone an inch beyond the reforms which it had been necessary to undertake as part of the ongoing reforms of the administration.

The letter also asks Pelly to give consideration to arrangements that would be required should the Gaekwar (Malharrao) be found guilty, and that he (Lord Northbrook) would send him his thoughts on the most desirable solution, including if the Gaekwar's family rights would also be found forfeit resulting in the need for a successor to be appointed according to the needs of the Baroda State and the British Indian Empire.

The letter goes on to discuss how the British action in Baroda was being viewed as the most important political event since the annexation of Oudh and that if possible a relative of the Gaekwar who was fit to rule, and approved of by the British, needed to be found who was at most only a year or two away from undertaking duties on his own with the support of a good native minister. The letter also discusses British relations with a potential new ruler, and that there would be no need for new treaties or alterations to territory and that the only matter to be settled would be that of military defence, which it may be possible to do using the police rather than stationing British troops there.

The letter concludes by asking for Pelly's unreserved opinions on the matters discussed in the letter.

A postscript to the letter states that Sir Richard Meade's suggestion for an Agent Governor-General for Baroda and the surrounding states should be left until the succession questions have been settled.