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Updated: June 26, 2025
"During that year there was little fighting down here. A Bombay force, however, under the command of General Matthews, captured Bednore; but Tippoo hastened against him with a great force, besieged Bednore, and forced it to surrender, after a desperate defence. Tippoo violated the terms of capitulation, and made the defenders prisoners.
The spear heads were of gold, set with jewels. When the work of inspection was finished, they went back to their room, where their attendant soon afterwards, with an air of great exultation, brought their meal, which consisted of nine dishes each, a proof of the high favour with which Tippoo regarded them.
A treaty had been concluded with his son Tippoo; and the Carnatic had been evacuated by the armies of Mysore. Since the termination of the American war, England had no European enemy or rival in the Eastern seas. On a general review of the long administration of Hastings, it is impossible to deny that, against the great crimes by which it is blemished, we have to set off great public services.
The history of the Mysore dynasty would form a brilliant poem; and, if India shall ever have a poet again, he could not choose a more varied, animating, and splendid theme. Tippoo, in peace, turned saint, and, following the example of his prophet, forced one hundred thousand Hindoos, at the sword's point, to swear by the Koran. We pass over the remaining features of his fierce history.
Hyder, no doubt, slaughtered many, but he was not cruel by nature. He carried off enormous quantities of people, with their flocks and herds, but he did this to enrich Mysore with their labour, and did not treat them with unnecessary cruelty. "Tippoo, on the other hand, is a human tiger. He delights in torturing his victims, and slays his prisoners from pure love of bloodshed.
Tippoo was called, that he might seek his master, but to the consternation of all, his scanty possessions were removed and the room entirely empty; and the servants, hastening to his master's chamber, found a dressing-case known to stand on his table disappeared. Theft was the first suspicion, and Willoughby's presence doubly desirable. Again they sought, and in vain.
They made all preparations for using me as a side-dish at a cannibal banquet, when TIPPOO TIB arrived and released me. Tanganyika again! Back here safe and sound! TIPPOO TIB turned out most unsatisfactory. Wanted to marry me! with a hundred other wives already! Not prepared for this sort of home-life.
"It is wonderful," the captain said; and exclamations of admiration broke from the men standing round. "Tell us all about it, Dick," the Rajah went on. "It is a long story, Uncle; but the real news is that Tippoo, with his army, has left the head of the western passes, and has gone to Seringapatam. He is going to march down one of the passes, this side, at once.
Hyder Ali, the father of Tippoo, had been a common trooper in the service of the Rajah of Mysore by his intrepidity he became the captain of one of those bands, half soldier and half robber, which form the irregulars of an Asiatic army. By his address as a courtier, he rose into favour with the rajah, who gave him the command of his army.
Tippoo had already proved that he was not to be bound either by treaties or oaths. And, lastly, it would have been thought that, as a general, Lord Cornwallis would have wished his name to go down to posterity in connection with the conquest of Mysore, and the capture of Seringapatam, rather than with the memorable surrender of York Town, the greatest disaster that ever befell a British army.
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