INDIA.] HYDER ALI. 227 may further note, that the receipt of such gifts might have probably remained a secret, since even their refusal was not known until after his decease. In the corrections which Lord Clive applied to both the civil and military services, and in his general course of policy, he had, on some points, no more than fulfilled the positive instructions of the Court of Directors. On other points he obtained their entire approbation. But there were one or two besides on which he did not shrink from the painful duty of daring their displeasure, and standing firm against their peremptory orders. On the whole it may be said, that his second command was not less important for reform than his first had been for conquest. By this, the foundations, at least, of good government were securely laid. And the results might have been far greater still, could Clive have remained longer at his post. But the burning climate, combined with ceaseless anxiety and toil, had grievously impaired his health. In December, 1766, we find him during several weeks disabled from all writing, and at the close of the ensuing month he found it necessary to embark for England. He left the government to a man of no more than average ability-Mr. Verelst; yet under him there still continued the impulse given by a stronger hand. At this period, the main point of interest changes from the Presidency of Bengal to the Presidency of Madras. There, the English were becoming involved in another war. There, they had now, for the first time, to encounter the most skilful and daring of all the enemies against whom they ever fought in India- Hyder Ali. He was of humble origin, the grandchild of a wandering FAKIR or Mahomedan monk. Most versatile in his talents, Hyder was no less adventurous in his career; by turns a private man devoted to sports of the chase, a captain of freebooters, a partisan-chief, a rebel against the Rajah of Mysore, and commander-in-chief of the Mysorean army. Of this last position he availed himself to dethrone and supplant his master. Indeed, during his whole course, we seldom find him either restrained by scruples or bound by promises. One single instance of the kind will suffice to paint his character. A Brahmin, Khonde Row by name, at one time his close confederate, but afterwards his enemy, having taken the field against him, was reduced to the point of surrender. The Rajah and the ladies of the palace sent a joint message to Hyder, pleading for their friend the Brahmin, and inquiring what terms he might expect. "I will not only spare his life," said Hyder, "but I will cherish him like a parroquet.” Nevertheless, no sooner was the Brahmin in his hands than he was treated with the utmost rigour, and imprisoned for the remainder of his life in an iron cage. When Hyder was thereupon gently reminded of his promise, he answered, that he had literally kept his word, referring in proof to the cage in which the captive was confined, and to the rice and milk allotted for his daily food!* Pursuing his ambitious schemes, Hyder Ali became, not merely the successor of the Rajah, but the founder of the kingdom of Mysore. From his palace at Seringapatam, as from a centre, a new energy was infused through the whole of Southern India. By various wars and by the dispossession of several smaller princes, he extended his frontiers to the northward, nearly to the river Kistna. His posts on the coast of Malabar, Mangalore especially, gave him the means of founding a marine; and he applied himself with assiduous skill to train and discipline his troops according to the European models. The English at Madras were roused by his ambition, without as yet fully appreciating his genius. We find them at the beginning of 1767 engaged, with little care or forethought, in a confederacy against him with the Nizam and the Mahrattas. Formidable as that confederacy might seem, it was speedily dissipated by the arts of Hyder. At the very outset, a well-timed subsidy bought off the Mahrattas. The Nizam showed no better faith; he was only more tardy in his treason. He took the field in concert with a body of English commanded by Colonel Joseph Smith, but soon began to show symptoms of defection, and at * Colonel Wilks's Historical Sketches of the South of India, vol. i. p. 434. Sir John Malcolm, in his first mission to Teheran, gives an account of Tootee, a young dancing-girl from Shiraz, and a favourite of the Shah. "Tootee," adds Sir John, "is the Persian “word for a parrot, a bird which is proverbial in Persian tales for "its knowledge and habits of attachment.” (Sketches of Persia, p. 221., ed. 1845.) INDIA.] A FEMALE CHAMPION. 229 A last drew off his troops to join the army of Hyder. battle ensued near Trincomalee, in September, 1767. Colonel Smith had under him no more than 1,500 Europeans and 9,000 Sepoys; while the forces combined on the other side were estimated, probably with much exaggeration, at 70,000 men. Nevertheless, Victory, as usual, declared for the English cause. The Nizam in this action showed himself destitute alike of conduct and of courage. At the outset, he had valiantly cried: "Sooner than "yield, I would share the fate of Nazir Jung." Yet within an hour afterwards, the Indian prince was in full gallop to the westward; and his troops proved perfectly worthy of such a chief. Almost the only instance of spirit in his army was displayed by one of the ladies of his palace. These he had brought with him on a train of elephants, as spectators of his expected triumph. In his own panic he ordered that these elephants also should be turned for flight. Then, from one of the covered canopies a woman's voice was heard: "This elephant has not "been taught so to turn; he follows the standard of the "empire." Accordingly, though the English shot was falling thick around her, the female assertor of the honour of the empire would not allow her elephant to be drawn aside until first the standard had passed. † On the other hand, the troops of Hyder Ali, both then and afterwards, displayed not merely the effects of a braver chief and of a better discipline, but also the energies of a robuster race. The people within the Ghauts or hill-passes of Southern India, though far below the mountain races of Afghan, are yet far superior to the Hindoos of the plains. In these, the delicacy of limbs and the softness of muscles must be reckoned among the foremost causes of their failure on a battle-field. these, the utter want of strength in their bodily organisation is only, on some occasions and for some purposes, redeemed by its suppleness. It has been computed, that two English sawyers can perform in one day the work *See vol. iv. of this history, p. 301. In † Wilks's South of India, vol. ii. p. 38. I am sorry to spoil the story, but it appears that "the loss of several elephants was the "consequence of this damsel's demur." of thirty-two Indians. Yet, as the same authority assures us, see the same men as tumblers, and there are none so extraordinary in the world. Or employ them as messengers, and they will go fifty miles a day for twenty or thirty days without intermission.* Our victory at Trincomalee produced as its speedy consequence a treaty of peace with the Nizam. Hyder was left alone; but even thus proved fully a match for the English both of Madras and of Bombay. The latter had fitted out a naval armament which, in the course of the winter, reduced his sea-port of Mangalore and destroyed his rising fleet. Against these new enemies Hyder, like some wild beast at bay, made a sudden bound. Leaving to the eastward a force sufficient to employ and delude Colonel Joseph Smith, he silently descended the western Ghauts, and in May 1768, at the very time when least expected, appeared before the gates of Mangalore. The English garrison taken by surprise, hastily re-embarked in boats, relinquishing all their artillery and stores, and leaving also more than two hundred sick and wounded to the mercy, or rather the politic forbearance, of their crafty foe. Returning to the eastward, Hyder Ali continued to wage the war against Colonel Smith; inferior on any field of battle, but prevailing in wiles and stratagems, in early intelligence, and in rapid marches. He could not be prevented from laying waste the southern plains of the Carnatic, as the territory of one of the staunchest allies of England, Mahomed Ali, the Nabob of Arcot. Through such ravages, the British troops often underwent severe privations. Moreover, Colonel Smith was trammelled by the same system so often and so justly complained of in the wars of Marlborough-the appointment of field-deputies. Two members of the Council of Madras had been sent into his camp with full powers to control that is, to clog and thwart― his operations. At length, in the spring of 1769, Hyder Ali became desirous of peace, and resolved to extort it on favourable terms. First, by a dexterous feint he drew off the *See an essay by Mr. Orme, in his Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, p. 463, INDIA.] HYDER AT ST. THOMAS'S MOUNT. 231 British forces a hundred and forty miles to the southward of Madras. Then suddenly, at the head of five thousan horsemen, Hyder himself appeared at St. Thomas's Mount, within ten miles of that city. The terrified Members of the Council already, in their mind's eye, saw their country-houses given up to plunder and to flame, and were little inclined to dispute whatever might be asked by an enemy so near at hand. Happily his terms were not high. A treaty was signed, providing that a mutual restoration of conquests should take place, and that the contracting parties should agree to assist each other in all defensive wars. In the career of Hyder Ali, this was by no means the first, nor yet the last occasion, on which he showed himself sincerely desirous of alliance with the English. He did not conceal the fact, that, in order to maintain his power and secure himself, he must lean either on them or on the Mahrattas. He would have preferred the first; it was the vacillation and weakness of the council at Madras that drove him to the latter. Finding his overtures of friendship slighted, he took his part, as always, decidedly and boldly. He became, even in the midst of peace, a known and ardent enemy of the English race and name; ever watchful for any opening to assail them; ever ready to league himself against them with the Mahratta chiefs at Poona, or the French Governors at Pondicherry. It was no common enemy whom the Madras traders (who could, at that period call them statesmen?) thus neglected or defied. The vigorous administration of Hyder at his Court of Seringapatam, has been closely viewed and well described by more than one European in his service. Like the other Indian Princes, he was addicted to licentious pleasure. Unlike them, he was never enslaved by it. Many of his leisure hours were passed in the company of dancing girls. To intoxication likewise he was often prone; and one instance is recorded, how, in that state, he was seen by his whole Court to seize and most severely cane his grown-up son, Tippoo. It may be added, that, on common occasions, his toilet took up a considerable portion of his time. But no sooner did any peril threaten, or any object of ambition |