the most faithless and usurping of mankind.” They were these arbitrary and impolitic deeds which brought down Hyder speedily upon them, with an army 100,000 strong; and soon showed them Madras menaced, the Carnatic overrun, Arcot taken, and a war of such a desperate and bloody character raging around them, as they had never yet seen in India, and which might probably have expelled them thence, had not death released them in 1782 from so formidable a foe, who had been so wantonly provoked. Tippoo Sultaun, with all his activity and cunning, had not the masterly military genius of his father,—but he possessed all the fire of his resentment, and it was not to be expected that, after what had passed, there could be much interval of irritation between him and the English. They had roused Hyder as a lion is roused from his den, and he had made them feel his power. They would naturally look on his son with suspicion, and Tippoo had been taught to regard them as “the most faithless and usurping of mankind.” Whatever, therefore, may be said for or against him, on the breaking out of the second war with him, the original growth of hostility between the British and the Mysorean monarchs, must be charged to the former, and in the case of the last war, there appears to have been no real breach of treaty on the part of Tippoo. He had been severely punished for any act of irritation which he might have committed against any of the British allies, by the reduction of his capital, the surrender of his sons as hostages, and the stripping away of one half of his territories to be divided amongst his enemies, each of whom had enriched himself with half a million sterling of annual revenue at his expense. Tippoo must have been nothing less than a madman in his shattered condition, and with his past experience, to have lightly ventured on hostilities with the English. But it was charged on him that he was seeking an alliance with the French. What then? He had the clearest right so to do. So long as he maintained the terms of his treaty, the English had no just right to violate theirs towards him. The French were his ancient and hereditary friends. Tippoo persisted to the last that he had done nothing to warrant an attack upon him; but Lord Mornington had adopted his notions about consolidating the British power in India, and every possible circumstance, or suspicion of a circumstance, was to be seized upon as a plea for carrying his plans into effect. It was enough that a fear _might_ be entertained of Tippoo’s designs. It became good policy to get the start; and when once that forestalling system in hostilities, that outstripping in the race of mischief, is adopted, there is no possible violence nor enormity which may not be undertaken, or defended upon it. Tippoo was assailed by the British, and their ally the Nizam; and though he again and again protested his innocence, again and again asked for peace, he was pursued to his capital, and