CHAPTER XI.

HYDER ALI-MYSORE.

1781-1782.

When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men whom no treaty or no signature could bind, and who were the enemies of human intercourse itself, he determined to make the country possessed of these incorrigible criminals a memorable example to mankind, to put a barrier of desolation between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection."

-EDMUND BURKE.

THE other Presidencies had long been emulous of the fame in successful aggression achieved by that of Bengal; but they were compassed round by native states more warlike and intractable, with whom their intermeddling as often brought discomfiture and loss as gain and victory. The Dutch, Portuguese, and French, as well as they, were incessantly intriguing with the Hindu and Moslem courts for privilege or pre-eminence; and the struggle, intermittently carried on, was quite as much with other European colonists as with suspicious Nawabs and Rajahs.

The war between the French and English, which was terminated by the treaty of Paris, left the former scarce a remnant of their once great possessions on the Coromandel

The feeble and corrupt Government of Louis XV. took little trouble to devise means for recovering what had been lost, and the flag of their ancient rivals now floated

peaceably over many a fort and field that had long and bloodily been contended for. Nor seemed there any power remaining all along that shore whom the conquerors need henceforth fear. Masulipatam, and other maritime provinces of the Nizam, were already theirs; Chingleput lying around Madras had been taken from the Nawab of the Carnatic; Surat and Salsette had recently been wrested from the Mahrattas; and the Dutch began to fear for their possessions in Ceylon. In 1766 three brothers were contending for the Musnud of the Deccan; and each of them was ready to purchase English aid by the offer of half the revenues of the seaboard provinces called the Five Circars. Nizam Ali prevailed, but being sore pressed by the Mahrattas, he agreed that the coveted districts should be committed to the charge of Hoossein Ali, half their revenues to be paid to the Company on condition of their affording help in collecting them. Sunnuds from Delhi were then secretly obtained by Clive, conferring the Circars on the English in absolute sovereignty. But these, when published, the Soubahdar refused to recognise. Force and negotiation were by turns employed, and at length a treaty of compromise was made, by which the fiscal possession of the Circars was yielded to the Presidency of Madras, subject to the payment of a considerable tribute, and an undertaking that the Company would in every event support the Nizam against his enemies. The tenure of these additional estates was thus confessedly one of occupancy at a quit-rent defeasible for breach of covenant. But from that day to the present it has been treated as one of absolute sovereignty.1

One native power alone had the presumption to retain a seaboard territory. Mysore was indeed without a navy worthy of the name, and without any apparent means of 1 Thornton's History of British India, 3d edit. p. 111.

creating one; but to the jealous eye of political and commercial monopoly all things are possible, probable, impending, when it is desirable to find them so. Disputes had sometimes arisen with the rulers of Mysore, but it was not until 1767 that an English corps, commanded by Colonel Smith, suddenly crossed the southern frontiers of the Carnatic, and took possession of the rich and important province of Baramahal. Why then, and not sooner, the latest apologist of English acquisition avows his inability to explain. The appropriation of a volume to the subject would not, he says, afford a satisfactory or lucid exposition of the events, or of the motives of the actors engaged in them. "It may be doubted," adds the historian, "whether the persons then forming the British Government of Madras understood their own policy; and it is quite certain that to all others it must ever remain inexplicable."1

Baramahal was one of the most fruitful provinces of Mysore, and from its position served to give that inland realm access to the Indian Sea. A long series of domestic troubles had unnerved the vigour of the Mysorean Government, and opened the way for the elevation of a Mohammedan soldier of fortune to more than a participation in the power and dignity of the ancient Hindu throne. The Rajah was still permitted to enjoy the pomp and luxuries of regal captivity, but Hyder was sole Minister and General, and virtually head of the State. Imperfect as the materials are for enabling us to estimate the genius and character of this singular man, enough remains to testify that, as a leader and a ruler, he was of that stamp which seldom breaks the level of ordinary capacity. The power of creating internal organisation where he found decrepid custom and incipient anarchy; the vigour he imparted to Thornton's History of British India, 3d edit. p. 111.

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the outworn mechanism of the administration both in peace and war; the aptitude he evinced for applying to the external defence of his country, and to the internal development of its resources, the arts and inventions of a foreign civilisation; his activity, his perseverance, his self-reliance, his personal daring, and, above all, the instinctive faculty he possessed of attaching men to him, have sufficiently been attested by those who, having bearded him in an hour of weakness, learned to tremble at his very name. Rapacious, false, and cruel, no epithet of obloquy was probably unjust, as applied to his long and chequered career; but his power, by the steady course of a system cf policy which his untaught genius had created, had reached a height in 1767 which the surrounding Governments could no longer afford to disregard. The Mahrattas and the Nizam had their own quarrels with this formidable chief; but the Company had not as yet been brought into collision with him. On the contrary, throughout his long reign they had always hitherto kept up with him friendly if not intimate relations; and if their expressions of esteem in latter days grew less sincere, care was taken that they should be at least as loud, or perhaps a little louder even than before. It is said to be a habit to which diplomatists are prone, to render their mutual salutations more impressive as their schemes for each others' ruin approach maturity. Of this we shall not fail to meet with some edifying examples by and by.

Grievance against Hyder the Company had none, but part of the price promised for the Circars was a defensive alliance with the Nizam, and this was now conveniently interpreted to mean an offensive pact against Mysore. Seringapatam and Hyderabad happening to be at feud, the occasion might be improved by seizing Baramahal.

Hyder's usual fortune appeared to have deserted him in his wars with the combined forces of the Mahrattas and the Nizam. The frontiers of Mysore were threatened on the north and east at one and the same time. His resources were still great, but it took them all to meet the opposite dangers that were converging upon his unaided kingdom. This was the moment chosen by the Council of Madras for suddenly invading his dominions. It is true that they were, up to the day when the invading corps began their march, not only at peace with Mysore, but bound by terms of friendship and alliance with its formidable ruler. But what of that? Though ruler still, he seemed formidable no longer; and was mere faith to stand in the way of the clear and manifest opportunity of helping themselves out of the exposed possessions of their friend? Were they to allow him to recover from the stunning blows already dealt upon him by his enemies? or to wait till the Mahrattas had appropriated perchance the whole of the spoil? The Governor of Madras and his colleagues were too wakeful to let such an opportunity slip. They determined, accordingly, to avail themselves of the defenceless situation of the Mysorean territory nearest to their own, and which, moreover, happened to be one of the best worth appropriating. Baramahal, they said, should henceforth be numbered with their possessions. By one of those sudden changes that in oriental war are of frequent occurrence, Hyder found himself relieved within a few weeks from both his native enemies, and at full liberty to devote his entire attention to his foreign friends. With stern promptitude he abandoned all other cares until he should not only satisfy them that they had seen quite as much of his territories as such visitors usually desire to become acquainted with, but, with a more than ordinary ceremony, he resolved never to quit them till he had seen them