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=== Discovery ===
 
According to one rumour, in 1698, a slave found a rough diamond weighing {{convert|410|carat|g ozt}} in [[Kollur Mine]] in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, India and hid it inside a large wound in his leg.<ref>Deccan Heritage, H. K. Gupta, A. Parasher and D. Balasubramanian, Indian National Science Academy, 2000, p. 144, Orient Blackswan, {{ISBN|81-7371-285-9}}</ref> An English sea captain stole the diamond from the slave, killed him and sold it to an Indian merchant.<ref>http://www.farlang.com/diamonds/streeter_great_diamonds/page_16</ref>
According to legend, the diamond was discovered by an [[Slavery in India|enslaved man]] in the [[Kollur Mine]] near the [[Krishna River]] and was concealed by the slave in a leg wound, which he suffered while fleeing the [[siege of Golconda]]. The slave then made to the Indian coast, where he met an English sea captain and offered him 50% of all profits made on the the sale of the diamond in exchange for safe passage out of India. However, the sea captain killed the slave and sold the diamond to the eminent Indian diamond merchant Jamchand.<ref> https://en.israelidiamond.co.il/wikidiamond/famous-diamonds/regent-diamond/ </ref><ref>Deccan Heritage, H. K. Gupta, A. Parasher and D. Balasubramanian, Indian National Science Academy, 2000, p. 144, Orient Blackswan, {{ISBN|81-7371-285-9}}</ref>
 
=== Pitt acquisition ===
In a letter to his London agent dated 6{{nbsp}}November 1701, [[Thomas Pitt]], the Governor of [[Fort St. George, India|Fort St. George]], writes:<blockquote>"... This accompanies the model of a Stone I have lately seene; it weighs Mang. 303 and carr<sup>tts</sup> 426. It is of an excellent christaline water without any fowles, only att{sic} one end in the flat part there is one or two little flaws which will come out in cutting, they lying on the surface of the Stone, the price they ask for it is prodigious being two hundred thousand [[pagoda (coin)|pag.]] tho I believe less than one (hundred thousand) would buy it"{{sfn|Hedges|1889|page=cxxvi}}</blockquote>
 
Pitt claimed he acquired the diamond from the eminent Indian diamond merchant JamchundJamchand for 48,000 [[pagoda (coin)|pagodas]]{{sfn|Hedges|1889|page=cxxxviii}} in the same year, so it is sometimes also known as the '''Pitt Diamond'''.<ref>Brown p.15</ref><ref>Shipley, Robert M. (1946) ''Diamond Glossary'', pp.&nbsp; 315 (PDF page 23) [[Gemological Institute of America]], USA, Vol. 5, No. 5 (Spring 1946)</ref> He dispatched the stone to London hidden in the heel of his son [[Robert Pitt|Robert]]'s shoe<ref>{{cite book|author=Edward Pearce|title=Pitt the Elder: Man of War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XfImNwMXDdoC&pg=PA6|year=2010|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-1-4090-8908-7|page=6}}</ref> aboard the [[East Indiaman]] ''Loyal Cooke'', which left [[Madras]] on 9{{nbsp}}October 1702.{{sfn|Hedges|1889|page=cxxvi}} It was later cut in London by the diamond cutter Harris, between 1704 and 1706. The cutting took two years and cost about £5,000<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.internetstones.com/regent-diamond-famous-jewelry.html|title=Regent Diamond|publisher=Internet Stones.COM}}</ref>
 
Rumours circulated that Pitt had fraudulently acquired the diamond,{{sfn|Hedges|1889|page=cxxxv}}<ref>{{cite book|first=Colin|last=Nicholson|title=Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century|url=https://archive.org/details/writingriseoffin0000nich|url-access=registration|year=1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-45323-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/writingriseoffin0000nich/page/149 149]}}</ref> leading satirist [[Alexander Pope]] to pen the following lines in his ''[[Moral Essays]]''<blockquote>
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