CHAPTER IX.

Career of Hyder Ali, father of Tippoo Saib.-Wars with the British.Great Qualities.-Marches to the Gates of Madras, and dictates Terms of Peace.-War with the Mahrattas.-British refuse to assist him.Invades the Carnatic.-Spreads terror through the country.-Tippoo Saib commands a Division of Horse.--Hyder Ali encounters the British under Colonel Baillie.-Utterly destroys Baillie's Force.-Cowardice of Sir Hector Munro in deserting Baillie.-British Prisoners saved from Massacre by the interposition of French Officers.—Measures of Warren Hastings.-Sir Eyre Coote takes the Field.-Fortune of the War changed.-Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib defeated.—They gain Advantages over the British.-A French Fleet arrives off the Coast of Malabar.-Cruel Treatment of the English Prisoners in the hands of Hyder. Hypocrisy of Tippoo Saib.-Death of Hyder Ali.-Tippoo cuts to pieces the British Force under General Mathews.-Mathews cruelly poisoned by the Tyrant.-Seventeen British Officers poisoned in Prison.-Others die from the Effects of Imprisonment.-Fall of Bednore. Siege of Mangalore.-Peace between Great Britain and France.-Termination of the War with Tippoo.-Wealth and Resources of Tippoo Sultaun.-Tippoo, in defiance of the British, makes War upon Travancore.-Marquess Cornwallis takes the Field.-Seringapatam invested.-Tippoo alarmed.-The Capital spared.-Gives his Sons as Hostages.-Deprived of a large Portion of his Territory.— Obliged to pay the Expenses of the War.-Continued Enmity to the British. The Political Balance created by Marquess Cornwallis disarranged in 1798.-The Allies weaker.-Tippoo's Strength recovered -Corresponds with the French, &c.-His Letter to Sir John Shore, respecting Lord Mornington.-Letters to Sir Alured Clarke and Lord Mornington.

TIPPOO SAIB, Sultaun of Mysore, first attracted notice in the protracted and bloody wars of his father, the renowned Hyder Ali Khan, against the British.

During the wars between the French and the English in the Carnatic, Hyder, who had originally been a private soldier in the service of the Rajah of Mysore, raised himself first to be the captain of a band of marauders, then to commander of the army of Mysore; and finally, like Nadir Shah, Napoleon and other military dictators, assumed sovereign power. Tippoo, the usurper's eldest son, was educated in all the sciences which are cultivated by the Mohammedan sect to which Hyder Ali was devoted with all the enthusiastic ardour of a devout Mussulman. He discovered but little taste for learning, however; and at an early age addicted himself to martial exercises. During the first war Hyder carried the terrors of his arms to the gates of Madras, and dictated terms of peace to the British Government; Tippoo, at this time nineteen years of age, was entrusted with the command of a corps of cavalry. Mutual restitution of conquests and an alliance in defensive wars, were the conditions of the treaty which terminated hostilities. In 1770 the Mahrattas invaded Mysore; and Hyder Ali applied to his British allies for assistance against these formidable enemies; but assistance was not rendered to him, and he had to purchase peace on disadvantageous terms. Filled with rage and resentment against the British, who had disappointed his hopes, the active chieftain of Mysore opened communications with the French authorities. at Pondicherry, and succeeded in detaching the Nizam from his alliance with the British Government. Having collected an overwhelming force, he descended into the Carnatic like a thunderbolt. His army con

sisted of twenty thousand regular infantry, and seventy thousand horse; nearly one half of which were disciplined in European tactics, and were directed by French officers and engineers. Hyder's sudden irruption carried dismay into the council-chamber of Madras. The villas in the neighbourhood of Madras were deserted by the panic-stricken inhabitants, and the British residents of the presidency, it is even said, thought of taking refuge in their ships and abandoning the city. A little army under the command of Colonel Baillie, while endeavouring to form a junction with the force of Sir Hector Munro, but six miles distant, was attacked by the combined forces of Hyder Ali. Colonel Baillie's little band consisted of only four hundred Europeans and two thousand sepoys; but animated by the heroic spirit of their undaunted leader, they maintained their ground with firmness, in the hope of being relieved by Sir Hector Munro. Forming a square, they resisted no less than thirteen charges of the Mysore cavalry; and notwithstanding the fearful havoc created by the fire of sixty pieces of cannon and the fury of armed elephants, for some time the fortunes of the day were doubtful. Sir Hector Munro was near enough to hear the distant thunder of the artillery; but with a degree of poltroonery that neither became his Trojan appellation, nor the character of the nation to which he belonged, he retreated precipitately within the gates of Madras, and left the whole of his brethren in arms, either to be cut to pieces or to endure the horrors of a captivity worse than death. Colonel Baillie and two hundred officers

and men were the only survivors at the close of the day; and but for the humane intervention of General Lally and the French officers, they would have been instantly massacred. Hyder was in the thick of the battle during the fight; while Tippoo, his lion whelp, ravening in English blood, shared in the dangers and glories of the day. The intelligence of these events produced an extraordinary sensation throughout British India: the whole population of Madras put on mourning. Warren Hastings instantly dispatched Sir Eyre Coote with five hundred Europeans and five hundred sepoys to the relief of Madras; and, quitting Calcutta, proceeded in person to the seat of war ; taking upon himself the direction of affairs in the invaded presidency. Sir Eyre Coote at once took the field, and soon changed the fortunes of the war. He compelled Hyder Ali to raise the sieges of Wandimash, Vellore, &c.; and in a bloody engagement with the Mysorean forces near Porto Novo, on the sea coast, routed the enemy. Hyder, however, gained an advantage over the British on the very ground on which Colonel Baillie's troops were cut to pieces, and Sir Eyre Coote was compelled to fall back upon Madras. Lord Macartney, the new Governor of Madras, now made proposals of peace to Hyder Ali; but they were rejected with disdain; and both parties prepared for a protracted struggle. Colonel Baillie and the officers and soldiers who fell into the hands of their enemy, were treated with the greatest barbarity, and were imprisoned in irons in the dungeon of Seringapatam, notwithstanding the hypocritical

professions of Tippoo Saib that he felt a sympathy for the sufferings of these brave men and would exert himself to alleviate their condition.

In November, 1781, Lord Macartney had so far augmented the British forces as to enable him to undertake the enterprise of attacking Negabatam. The attack was successful, and 7000 Mysores were made prisoners. Sir Eyre Coote again took the field: he relieved Vellore, which had endured the unspeakable horrors of a sixteen months' close blockade : he took Chittor from the enemy, and expelled Hyder from Tanjore, which had suffered an accumulation of miseries during the previous campaign. But fortune was not always on the British side: Hyder occasionally pressed hard on his antagonists; and on the 17th of February, 1782, his son Tippoo Saib, on the banks of the Cole river in the Tanjore country, at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty pieces of ordnance, totally defeated an English force of two thousand men commanded by Colonel Braithwaite. Again the humanity of the French officers was displayed; but for the carnestness with which they interposed with Tippoo in behalf of the British prisoners, those unfortunate men would have been put to death in cold blood by their sanguinary young conqueror. Hyder Ali's last battle was fought with Sir Eyre Coote at Arneé; he was repulsed; and in a few months afterwards died in the eighty-second year of his age, in the midst of preparations for co-operating with a French fleet of twelve sail of the line which had arrived off the coast of Malabar. The unhappy Englishmen who were kept close prisoners in Seringapatam were cruelly disap