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Mysore, as a volunteer at the siege of Deonhully, the castle of a polygar, about CHAP. VIII. twenty-four miles north-east from Bangalore, which, in 1749, Nunjeraj undertook to reduce. On this occasion the ardour, the courage, and the mental resources of Hyder, drew upon him the attention of the General; and, at the termination of the siege, he was not only raised to the command of fifty horse, and 200 peons, or foot, but was entrusted with the charge of one of the gates of the fortress.

He continued to recommend himself with so much success to Nunjeraj, that when the efforts of the English to establish their authority in Madura and Tinivelly, in 1755, rendered precarious the possession of the fort of Dindigul, Hyder was chosen as the man on whom its defence could, with greatest surety, repose. It was situated on a high rock in the middle of a plain, at nearly an equal distance of about fifty miles from Madura and Trichinopoly; and amid the confusions of Carnatic had fallen into the hands of the Mysoreans about ten years before. This elevation added fuel to the ambition of Hyder; and from this period his exertions in its gratification became conspicuous and incessant.

The depredations upon which all Indian, and other barbarous warriors, are so much accustomed to subsist, he reduced to a system. There are in India, and in particular in that part of it to which he belonged, a species of troops, or of men bearing the title of soldiers, who are particularly skilled in all the arts of plunder and of theft; who receive, indeed, no pay in the armies of most of the Indian states, but are understood to provide for themselves by the devastations which they commit. A body of these men Hyder engaged in his service; and employed in the business of depredation. Hyder had never learned either to write or to read; but he valued himself upon the faculty of performing exactly by memory arithmetical calculations, with greater velocity than the most expert accountants. He agreed with his depredators to receive from them one half of the spoil; and so skilfully, we are told, he contrived his checks that it was nearly impossible for any part of it to be concealed. It was of little importance to Hyder, or to his gang, when the convenience and safety were equal, whether the property which they acquired was taken from friends or from foes. Valuables of every description were their prey;" from convoys of grain," says Mr. Wilks, "cattle and sheep, which were among the most profitable heads of plunder, down to the clothes, turbans, and ear-rings, of travellers and villagers, men, women, and children." Thus it was, that Hyder acquired the sinews of war; and before he left Trichinopoly, to which he had repaired in the army of Nunjeraj, he was a commander of 1,500 horse, 3,000 regular infantry, 2,000

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Book IV. peons, and four guns. Having enlisted the most select of the men discharged by Nunjeraj, he departed for Dindegul at the head of 2,500 horse, 5,000 regular infantry, and 2,000 peons, with six guns. He employed against the polygars of his district and its neighbourhood the arts of fraud and of force, with equal success. His vigilant eye discovered, and his activity drained, every source of revenue. He excelled in deceiving the government with false musters and accounts; and the treasures of Hyder were daily augmented. The distracted state of Madura, in 1757, encouraged him to make an effort to gain possession of that country; but Mahomed Issoof marched against him at the head of the English Sepoys, and gave him a severe defeat at the mouth of the narrow pass of Natam. The weak and distracted state of the government of Mysore afforded opportunity to Hyder of ascending gradually to higher and higher gradations of power. The Rajah, who was uneasy at the state of insignificance in which he was held, harassed the ministers with perpetual intrigues; and the brothers themselves were so little united, that Deoraj, who had most of years and of prudence, retired from the scene in disgust, and left Nunjeraj alone to sustain the weight of affairs. The treasury had been exhausted by repeated exactions of the Mahrattas; and in 1758 the troops of Nunjeraj mutinied for payment of arrears.

This was an occasion on which Hyder conceived that he might interpose his authority with advantage. He marched from Dindegul with the whole of his disposable troops; exerted himself with success in effecting a reconciliation between the brothers, and between the brothers and the Rajah; with his strict and experienced eye he examined and reduced the false accounts of the army; and, by effecting a partial payment of arrears, restored the troops to obedience. In this transaction he had sustained the character of a friend to all; and took care to be rewarded in proportion. An assignment was made to him of the revenues of a track of country for sums due by the government; and the fort and district of Bangalore were bestowed upon him in personal jaghire. The moment looked favourable for securing what he probably deemed a greater advantage. Herri Sing was one of the most powerful chiefs in the service of Mysore, and the declared enemy of Hyder. Under pretence of forwarding part of his troops to Dindegul, Hyder sent a large detachment to attack the camp of Herri Sing, who, reposing in careless security, was surprised, with a large portion of his troops, and massacred in the middle of the night.

An invasion of the Mahrattas, which immediately followed, in the beginning of 1759, contributed more remarkably to the elevation of Hyder. Though several of the principal commanders disdained to serve under a man whom they

had so lately seen in a very subordinate station, he was appointed to the chief CHAP. VIII. command against this formidable enemy; and acquitted himself with so much vigour and success, that before the end of the campaign he reduced them to an inclination for peace; and concluded a treaty on what were deemed favourable terms.

Hyder was now advanced to the rank and power of commander-in-chief, and had only his friend and patron Nunjeraj, for Deoraj was dead, between him and the entire control of the resources of the state. Hyder's impatience admitted little delay. To secure the countenance of the Rajah against a man who was at once his robber and his gaoler, was an easy intrigue; and the troops, whose arrears had not been fully paid, and had again increased, were artfully incited to mutiny against Nunjeraj, and to place Hyder, by compulsion, at their head. The Rajah now interposed, and offered to procure pay for the troops, as soon as Hyder should take an oath to be obedient, and to renounce his connexion with the usurping minister. Hyder failed not to exhibit reluctance; but at last allowed himself to be constrained; and Nunjeraj, who could not any longer misunderstand the game, and whose courage was not remarkable, consented to retire, upon the condition of receiving an honourable provision. The Rajah was complimented with the show of greater liberty; but Hyder, to be enabled to provide for the arrears, and the regular pay of the troops, took care to procure the assignment of the revenues of so many districts, that what was now in his direct possession exceeded half the territory of the state.

In March, 1759, Hyder received overtures from Lally, inviting him to his assistance against the English; and, amid the contentions of the rival strangers, looked forward to acquisitions in Carnatic. To pave the way for the share which he proposed to take in determining the fate of that important region, he resolved to obtain possession of the territory which separated Mysore from the confines of Carnatic, and which consisted first of the territory of Anicul, situated on the eastern verge of the tract of woody hills, between Savendy Droog and the Cavery, and next of the Baramahal, a province situated on the intermediate level between the first and second ranges of hills. Immediately after the termination of the stratagem against Nunjeraj, a part of the troops, with a confidential general, were detached to occupy this intermediate territory, which opened a safe communication into the very centre of the province of Arcot. Anicul and Baramahal were secured; and the General proceeded to. Pondicherry, under orders from Hyder, to settle the terms of co-operation with the French. These were speedily, adjusted; and, on the 4th of June, 1760, a

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Book IV. detachment of the Mysorean army arrived at Thiagar, which was surrendered to them by the treaty. The defeat which was sustained by a detachment of the English army, sent to intercept the Mysoreans on their march to Pondicherry, greatly elevated the spirits of Hyder; and inspired him with a resolution to exert his strength in the war of Carnatic. Several divisions of his troops were ordered to assemble in Baramahal, and the affairs of Carnatic might have undergone a revolution, had not a storm arisen in another quarter which it required all the address and power of Hyder to elude.

The distant employment of the troops of Hyder, and his own position with a small detachment, under command of the guns of the palace, and surrounded by the river, which, being now full, it was impossible to pass, suggested to the queen-mother the possibility of cutting him off, and delivering her son from the thraldom in which it was the evident intention of Hyder to retain him. The assistance was secured of a Mahratta chief, who was at the head of an army in a neighbouring territory; and a cannonade began. Hyder soon discovered that his situation was desperate; but the main attack being deferred till the arrival of the Mahrattas, night came on, when Hyder, with the assistance. of a few boats, crossed the river unperceived, with a small body of horse, leaving his family behind him; and having travelled ninety-eight miles in twenty hours, the first seventy-five on the same horse, he arrived at Bangalore. He was just in time to precede the orders of the Rajah, by which the gates of the fort would have been shut against him; and he now hastened to collect his forces, of which those serving with Lally constituted a principal part.

camp.

The fortunes of Hyder tottered on the verge of a precipice. The troops, which were hastening towards him from Carnatic and Baramahal, were intercepted by the Mahrattas, who had joined the Rajah; and besieged in their The utmost efforts of Hyder were ineffectual to relieve them; and his power was ready to drop from his hands; when the Mahrattas agreed to march off, upon receiving the cession of Baramahal, and the payment of three lacks of rupees. They had engaged their services to Lally, now besieged in Pondicherry; but had afterwards accepted the promise of a large sum from the English Nabob, on condition of returning immediately to Poonah. It was in consequence of this stipulation, so fortunate for Hyder, that they accepted his additional bribe; and the man, who was destined to bring the English interests to the brink of ruin, was saved by a stroke of English politics.

Hyder took the field against the forces of the Rajah, but still perceiving himself to be inferior to his enemies, he took a resolution, which it required:

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Oriental hypocrisy and impudence to form, and of which nothing less than CHAP. VIII. Oriental credulity could have been the dupe. Unexpected, unarmed, and alone, he presented himself as a suppliant at the door of Nunjeraj, and being admitted, prostrated himself at his feet. He acknowledged, in terms of bitter anguish, the wrongs of which he was guilty toward the first and greatest of his friends; vowed to devote his future life to their reparation; and entreated a firm and sincere union, that he might establish Nunjeraj in the station of honour and power in which he had formerly beheld him. It requires a high degree of improbability to prevent the greater part of mankind from believing what they vehemently wish. Nunjeraj was gained; and lent his troops, his exertions, his name, and his influence, to give ascendancy to the cause of Hyder. Fraud was an operative instrument in the hands of this aspiring general. Finding himself intercepted with the small detachment which had accompanied him on his sudden journey to the retreat of Nunjeraj, and his junction with the main body of his army which he had left to hang during his absence upon the rear of the enemy, rendered difficult, and his situation dangerous, he forged letters, in the name of Nunjeraj, to the principal commanders in the hostile army, letters purporting to be the result of a conspiracy into which these commanders had already entered to betray their General to Nunjeraj. The bearer was seized of course; and the letters delivered into the hands of the General, who fulfilled the fondest wishes of Hyder, by taking the panic, and running away from the army. During its confusion it was assailed by the main body of Hyder's forces. in the rear, by the detachment with himself in front; and yielded an easy and decisive victory. The triumph of Hyder was now secured. He delayed, only till he augmented his army, and took possession of the lower country; when he ascended the Ghauts, and early in the month of May, 1761, arrived at the capital. He sent to the Rajah a message; "That large sums were due to Hyder by the State, and ought to be liquidated: After the payment of these arrears, if the Rajah should be pleased to continue him in his service, it was well; if not, Hyder would depart, and seek his fortune elsewhere." The meaning of this humble communication no one misunderstood. It was arranged, that districts should be reserved to the amount of three lacks of rupees for the personal expenses of the Rajah, and one lack for those of Nunjeraj; and that of the remainder of the whole country the management should be taken by Hyder, with the charge of providing for the expenses, civil and military, of the govern ment. From this period Hyder was undisputed master of the kingdom of Mysore.