The bravery and "duplicity" of Clive, who believed in the adage, "similia similibus curantur," enabled him to succeed beyond the most sanguine expectations. Victory was followed by victory, and at length, at the battle of Plassey, Clive at the head of three thousand men, of whom less than one-third were English, and in the course of a single hour's conflict, routed the entire army of Surajah Dowlah, consisting of fifty-five thousand armed men. Surajah Dowlah vanquished and deposed, his prime minister, Meer Jaffer, was appointed in the place of the master, whom he had not only deserted, but betrayed, and thus Meer Jaffer became at once the subject and tool of the English. The directors of the East India Company, on receiving the news of Clive's success, appointed him governor of their possessions in Bengal, and in 1760 Clive was raised to the peerage with an income of forty thousand pounds a year. Warren Hastings was the next Englishman who from the position of a clerk in an office at Calcutta rose to be the governor-general of British India. The kingdom of Mysore, whose lofty table-lands are swept by the cool breezes of the Indian Ocean, has always been inhabited by a more hardy and manly race than that which occupied the lower plains of Hindostan. Hyder Alee, an illiterate common soldier, impelled by a daring spirit of adventure, seized this kingdom of Mysore and seated himself on the throne of Seringapatam. The next step taken by this daring adventurer was even more startling. In the month of June, 1780, and when in his eightieth year, he led an immense army into the Carnatic, carrying slaughter and destruction wherever he appeared. Two small English armies, headed by Colonel Baillie and Sir Hector Munro, tried in vain to check his course; they were not only overwhelmed, but compelled to retreat, and it seemed as if the British empire in Southern India trembled on the very verge of destruction. It was this critical juncture that brought out the great genius of Warren Hastings. He at once took upon himself the supreme direction of affairs, superseded the incapable council at Madras, and without loss of time despatched the brave veteran Sir Eyre Coote with a small but resolute force to the assistance of the English at Madras. At once the forces of Hyder Alee were checked, siege after siege was raised, until at length the English and Mohammedan armies met on the plains of Cuddalore, whence, after a desperate fight, the latter was driven in wild and disorderly confusion. Hyder Alee died two years after this defeat, bequeathing to his son, the famous Tippoo Saihib, his throne and his hatred of English domination.