ters dispatched in every direction his determination to exercise the office of Serv Adikar, which he still nominally retained, with Hyder as his Dulwoy, or commander-in-chief. Hyder on leaving his army, had given directions for hanging on the rear of Kundè Row in the event of his making a movement towards Cunnoor; which on receiving intelligence of the above stated facts, he of course considered to be his primary object. Hyder attempted by various movements to form a junction with his army, which Kunde Row, by more skilful evolutions, preven. ted, and pressed forward with such vigour, that the destruction of Hyder and his new friends appeared to be inevitable, when he was extricated by one of those instances of his talent for intrigue and deception which seems to have constituted the leading feature of his character, and to have influenced, more than any other, the whole tenour of his eventful life.

The movements to which we have adverted brought Kundè Row to Kuttè Malwaddy, twenty-six miles S. W. from Seringapatam, about the 20th of February; and Hyder, closely pursued, was about ten miles in his front, when he prepared in the name and with the seal of Nunjeraj letters addressed to the principal leaders of Kundè Row's army: these letters adverted to a supposed engagement which they had made to seize Kundè Row and deliver him to Nunjeraj; they promised, on his part, to perform the conditions of the stipulated reward; and concluded with the observation, that nothing now remained but that they should immediately earn it.

The bearer of these letters departed duly instructed, and falling purposely into the hands of the outposts was carried to Kundè Row; who, entertaining not the least suspicion of the artifice, conceived that he was betrayed by his own army, and, seized with a sudden panic, instantly mounted his horse, and escaped at full speed to Seringapatam, without any previous communication with the suspected chiefs. The flight of the commander-inchief being quickly kuown, a general agitation ensued ; the more dangerous as the motive was utterly unknown: and every person began to provide for his safety by flight, without any one being able to communicate to the other the cause of his alarm. Hyder's light troops brought him early intelligence of the state of the enemy; and at this instant his army, by a preconcerted movement, appeared in the rear of Kundè Row's, while he moved his own corps to attack the front; and by falling upon it with his whole force, in this state of dismay and confusion, he obtained a complete and decisive victory, capturing the whole of

the enemy's infantry, guns, stores, and ́ baggage. The horse alone had by an early flight provided for their safety, and the infantry were incorporated without much reluctance into the army of the victor.

By means of a force that was now respectable, and the aid of additional artifice, he was shortly enabled to dictate terms in the following arbitrary tone.

He dispatched a message to the Raja, intimating in substance," that Kundè Row was the servant of Hyder, and ought to be given up to him that large balances were due to Hyder by the state, and ought to be liquidated. After the payment of these arrears, if the Raja should be pleased to continue him in his service, it was well; if not, he would depart, and seek his fortune elsewhere."

Such were the terms of his formal communication to the Raja. To the persons holding public offices he conveyed the object of his demands, and the consequences of rejection, in a more distinct. manner. Many of these persons had; long held the most important offices of the government, and had benefited largely by the laxity and corruption which had prevailed: they were accordingly more occupied with the means of securing their private fortunes than by considerations affecting the fate of Kundè Row, the rights of the Raja, or the safety of the state. Such principles opposed but slender impediments to the designs of the conqueror, who had signified his pleasure that the full extent of his. meditated usurpation should, in the last bitterness of mockery, appear to be the spontaneous act of the Raja himself: that unfortunate personage was readily made to understand that the danger was imminent, that no means existed of paying the balances, or making any appropria tion of funds for their speedy liquidation; and that one only arrangement remained which could afford the hope of averting more dreadful calamities. A proposal for carrying that arrangement into effect was, in this moment of terror, transmitted to Hyder in the name, and with the concurrence, of the Raja; namely, 1st. That districts to the amount of three lacs. should be reserved for the Raja's personal expenses, and one lac for Nunjeraj : 2d. That Hyder should assume the management of the remainder of the country, and charge himself with the responsibility of defraying the arrears, and providing for the pay of the army and public charges of every description; and 3d. That Kundè Row should be given up to him.

This heavy load of care and responsibility was of course most reluctantly but dutifully undertaken, and Hyder waited on the Raja about the beginning of June with all the forms of mock submission and respect; aud from this moment his usurpation was complete. The solemn, affecting, and well-acted interview with Nunjeraj at Cunnoor was consigned to convenient oblivion, or revived in ridiculous forms for the amusement of his convivial hours; and that weak and credulous man, after the first impressions had subsided, seemed scarcely to have expected any other result.

:

Kunde Row was given up, and confined and his official servants, as well as himself, were of course plundered to

the utmost extent of their means. Before it had been determined that Kundè Row

should be surrendered, a joint message

was sent to Hyder from the Raja and the ladies of the palace, praying for mercy towards that unfortunate man as a preliminary to the adjustment of public affairs. Hyder replied, that Kundè Row was his old servant, and that he would not only spare his life, but cherish him like a parroquet; a term of endearment common in conversing with women, from that bird being a favourite pet in the harams of the wealthy. When he was afterwards gently admonished of his severity to Kundê Row, he ironically replied, that he had exactly kept his word; and that they were at liberty to inspect his iron cage, and the rice and milk allotted for his food; for such was the fate to which he had doomed Kundè Row for the remainder of his miserable life.

Hyder, who beyond a question had now invested himself with the sovereignty of Mysoor, being endowed with a mind that must always be in action,naturallylooked abroad for foreign conquest. He immediately formed an alliance with Basalut Jung, a restless and enterprising chief, who finding himself incapable of depriving his elder brother, the Soubahdar of the Deckan, of the government he possessed, was actively engaged in attempting to enhance his power by unprovoked encroachments on the territories of minor chieftains. By virtue of this alliance, the district of Sera, so soon as conquered, was to be added to the dominions of Hyder. The acquisition was speedily accomplished, and only prepared the to the attainment

way

of more extensive advantages, and to operations which ultimately provoked the jealousy of the most powerful princes of the peninsula. The conquest of Bednore, a kingdom which bordered on the province of Sera, was first suggested to Hyder by the claims of an impostor, who pretended to be the identical Rajah who was assassinated about five years before, and who now solicited his assistance to reinstate him in the possession of his hereditary dominions. The penetrating mind of Hyder was not to be so deceived. He availed him

self, however, of the opportunity

which the circumstance afforded, of virtually conquering in his own right a kingdom which, from the riches of the inhabitants and the fertility of the soil, was not to be overlooked in the widest range that the prospects of ambition could command. The events of the conquest are thus related by Colonel Wilks.

Hyder, on the instant of his arrival at the barrier, in the beginning of March 1763, ordered a noisy but feigned attack to be made on the posts in his front; while he placed himself at the head of a column formed of his most select troops, aud, following the path pointed out by his guide, entered the city before an alarm was given of his approach.

The Ranee's servants set fire to the palace in different places, in conformity to their instructions. The inhabitants of this rich and populous town had hitherto been exempted from the alarms and miseries of war; a felicity rare in India, aud everywhere least appreciated by those who have most enjoyed it. They fled in all directious, with a dismay and astonishment embittered by its contrast with the stupid and insolcut security of their former habits. The terror of such minds, outstripping the ordinary effects of fear, drove the whole mass of the inhabitants to concealment in the woods and mouutains, which touch the very confines of the city and the immense property of the most opulent commercial town of the east, cight miles in circumference, and full of rich dwellings, was thus left without a claimant.

Hyder's first care was to extinguish the flames of the palace, in which he personally assisted; and his second to put an end to the plunder of the troops, in order that he himself might become the

exclusive possessor of the booty. His ar rangements for this purpose were so skilfully combined, that in a few hours, his official seals were placed on the doors of every public and private dwelling above the condition of a hovel, and safeguards were stationed to enforce respect to the only plunder which was deemed to be legitimate. The available property of every description, including money and jewels, which he realized on this occasion, is variously stated, but it may without the risk of exaggeration be estimated at twelve millions sterling; and was throughout life habitually spoken of by Hyder as the foundation of all his subsequent greatness.

The occupation of the rest of the country was rather a business of arrangement than of conquest. The two principal detachments possessed themselves of Bussoo Raj Droog, (fortified island)-Honaver, (Onore) and Mangalore on the coast; and a third of Bellalroydroog, where the Ranee capitulated on the general* assurance of due consideration for her rank and dignity.

On the arrival of the army at Coompsee, the fraud of the pretended Chen Busveia is understood to have been discovered, if indeed we are to suppose that Hyder at any time believed the tale; but until the capture of the Ranee he continued to treat the impostor with all the forms of distinguished external respect, not, however, concealing a smile at the jests of the soldiers, who amused themselves by saluting him with the title of Ghyboo Raja, or the Raja of the resurrection; a name which became the standing joke of

the camp.

Whatever may have been the conditions

remained until liberated on the capture of the place by the Mahrattas in 1767.

Hyder was now detained for a short period, in consequence of the commencement of the rainy season, in the territories he had just acquired, and during that interval a conspiracy was formed for his assassination by the servants of the former dynasty. The plot was chiefly detected by the penetration of Hyder himself, and was suppressed by the summary execu tion of three hundred of the conspirators.

The province of Sera," which Hyder deemed it convenient to receive in the garb of a formal investiture from a Mahommedan lord, was in point of fact a conquest from the Mahrattas ;" and he was now on the eve of a war with that nation. Finding that the contest was inevitable, he endeavoured by the rapidity of his conquests to create in the dominions of his enemies a formidable barrier against the progress of their arms and before they were in a condition to confront him with their troops, he was actually in possession of nearly the whole of the Mahratta country between the Tombuddra and the Kistna. But he had now to contend with an

*Budr ù Zeman Khan states that she capitu

lated on the condition of being reinstated in her sovereignty on her conversion to Islam; that she accordingly went through the form of renouncing her cast by eating beef, and after this wanton degradation was sent to Mudgherry. I have no doubt of the main facts of the case, but I conclude that my respectable informant must have forgotten some of its circumstances. Hyder seldom adhered to the spirit of an inconvenient engagement; but he professed never to deviate from its letter, and the oracle of Delphos was not more skilful in framing an equivocal sentence. But a conversion to Islam certainly was never blended with his political views, and must have been the spontaneous offer of a woman to whom disgrace was familiar; the expectation may have

and narrowly escaped with the loss of half his army. The contest was terminated, however, even before Hyder was able to reach a situation that was perfectly secure, by means of a mysterious negociation that was carried on between the * the latter and a relation of the chieftain who commanded the Mahratta army, and who, in common with Hyder himself, had usurped the authority of his lord.

The terms of the treaty, as Colo

never made a promise on such a condition.