[Sidenote: Tippu's alliance with France.] §1. The first duty of Lord Mornington was to get rid of the French sepoy battalions in the Deccan and Hindustan, and to provide for the defence of India against France and Napoleon. Within three weeks of his landing at Calcutta the note of alarm was sounded in Southern India. Tippu, Sultan of Mysore, had formed a hostile alliance with France against Great Britain. It appeared that Tippu had been groaning under his humiliation by Lord Cornwallis, and burning to be revenged on the British government. He hesitated to ally himself with the Mahrattas or the Nizam, and coveted an alliance with a European power. Accordingly he secretly sent emissaries to the French governor of Mauritius, to conclude a treaty with France and Napoleon against Great Britain. The idea fired the imagination of the French at Mauritius, and the fact of the treaty was published in the _Mauritius Gazette_, and republished in the Calcutta newspapers for the edification of the new Governor-General. [Sidenote: Explanations demanded.] Lord Mornington naturally concluded that Tippu was in collusion with Napoleon, and that a French fleet might soon be sailing from Egypt down the Red Sea to help Tippu in the invasion of the Carnatic, or to help Sindia to restore the supremacy of the Great Mogul over Oudh and Bengal. In the first instance he called upon Tippu for an explanation, and proposed to send an envoy to Seringapatam to arrange for a better understanding between the two governments. [Sidenote: Tippu dumbfoundered.] Meanwhile Tippu was amazed and bewildered. To have his secret designs suddenly published in successive newspapers, and then to be called upon for an explanation, seems to have stupefied him. He replied that the French were liars, and refused to receive an envoy from Lord Mornington. To have overlooked the offence would have been sheer madness. Accordingly Lord Mornington determined to revive the old alliance with the Nizam and the Mahrattas against Tippu; and meanwhile to get rid of the French sepoy battalions. [Sidenote: French battalions disbanded at Hyderabad.] The Nizam welcomed a British alliance as offering a means of escape from the crushing demands of the Mahrattas. He was glad enough for the British to disband his French sepoy battalions, which drained his resources, and were threatening to mutiny for arrears of pay. A British force was moved to Hyderabad, the disbandment was proclaimed, and a battle was expected. Suddenly, the French sepoys raised an uproar, and the French officers rushed into the British lines for protection. It was the old Asiatic story of mutiny for want of pay, and when the British advanced the money, the sepoys went away rejoicing, and the French officers were thankful for their deliverance. [Sidenote: Mahrattas evade a British alliance.]