East India Company.- Read (Alexander, officer in the

East India Company.- Read (Alexander, officer in the East India Company, c. 1753, d. 1804) Report 1st. of the Colar [Kolar, Mysore] District [to Charles Earl Cornwallis], manuscript fair copy, c. 140. (incomplete at end), numerous tears, browned, edges chipped, unbound, large 4to, Bangalore, 1791.

⁂ A series of manuscript reports by Alexander Read, the first to Charles Cornwallis. Read was appointed superintendent of the Baramahal, and had worked in the intelligence and supply unit during the Third Mysore War, arriving in India in 1772 after receiving a commission as an officer cadet in 1770. He was the oldest but illegitimate son of a customs sloop officer from Dundee. Returning to Britain in 1800, only his failing health had persuaded him to leave India, where he spent all of his adult life. However, arriving in London after thirty years in India and finding that the climate did not suit him, he left for Malta, where he died in 1804. He never married but had one son and three daughters by two different women.