Tippoo Sahib

Tippoo Sahib (more correctly Tipû Sultan), sultan of Mysore, and son of Hyder Ali (q.v.), was born in 1749. Efforts were made to carefully instruct him in the various branches of learning cultivated by Mohammedans; but Tippoo much preferred the practice of athletic exercises, and the companionship of the French officers in his father's service, from whom he acquired a considerable acquaintance with European military tactics. This knowledge he put to effective use during his father's various wars, by completely routing Colonel Bailey (1780 and 1782), and Colonel Braithwaite on the banks of the Coleroon (1782), though these were his only important engagements with the British forces in which he could boast of success. On the death of his father he was crowned with little ceremony, returning at once to the head of his army, which was then engaged with the British near Arcot. In 1783 he captured and put to death most of the garrison of Bednur; but news of the peace between France and England having reached his French allies, they retired from active service, and Tippoo ultimately agreed to a treaty (1784) stipulating for the status quo before the war. During the continuance of this peace he occupied himself in regulating the internal administration of Mysore, sent ambassadors in 1787 to France to stir up a war with Britain, and, failing in this, at length so far allowed his inveterate hatred of the English to overcome his judgment as to invade (1789) the protected state of Travancore. In the ensuing war (1790-92) the British, under Colonel Stuart and Lord Cornwallis, were aided by the Mahrattas and the Nizam, who detested their powerful and aggressive neighbour; and though the tactics of the sultan in laying waste the Carnatic almost to the very gates of Madras baffled his opponents for a time, he was ultimately compelled (1792) to resign one-half of his dominions, pay an indemnity of 3030 lakhs of rupees, restore all prisoners, and give his two sons as hostages for his fidelity. Nevertheless his secret intrigues in India against the British were almost immediately resumed; another embassy was sent to the French; and the invasion of Egypt by the latter in 1798 and Tippoo's machinations having become known to the governor-general almost simultaneously, it was resolved to punish the perfidious sultan. Hostilities commenced in March 1799, and two months after Tippoo was driven from the open field, attacked in his capital of Seringapatam, and after a month's siege slain in the breach at the storming of the fort (4th May). He was buried, during an appalling thunderstorm, in the mausoleum he had built for his father. His government of Mysore after 1792 was most oppressive, yet Tippoo was extremely popular, and was esteemed by the Mohammedans as a martyr. See L. B. Bowring, Heïdar Ali and Tipû Sultan (1893).