Hyder Ali had presented him with a bag of three hundred rupees for travelling expenses, which it would have been a great affront to return. He, however, made it over to the Government at Madras, and when they would not take it, asked leave to use it as the foundation for a collection for an English orphan school at Tanjore. This was granted, and proved a success. Finding that there was an intention of voting a present to him, he begged instead that a salary might be given to Mr. Pohle at Trichinopoly; and, in consequence, both were enabled to maintain catechists and schoolmasters; for of making a home for themselves, these devoted men never thought. Moreover, Swartz obtained bricks and lime for the building of his English church within the fort; and he bought and enlarged a house half a mile from it, for his Malabar Christians to worship in. His own observations of Hyder Ali's warlike intentions led also to his purchasing 12,000 bags of rice as a provision against the scarcity that too surely attends upon Indian warfare. In the summer of 1780, these apprehensions were realized. Hyder crossed the Ghauts, and passed down into the Carnatic with 100,000 men, directed by a staff of French officers, and plundered up to the very gates of Madras. Everything was in the greatest confusion; the English troops were dispersed in garrisons, and could not easily be brought together; and one small detachment under Colonel Baillie, who were made prisoners at Conjiveram, suffered a frightful captivity. Sir Eyre Coote did, indeed, keep the enemy in check, and defeat him in several battles, but had not at first sufficient numbers or stores effectually to drive him back; and the whole province of Tanjore was horribly wasted. The irrigation of the district had been broken up by the invaders; there was for three years neither seed-time nor harvest, and the miserable peasants crawled into the towns to perish there, often with their sons carried off to form a regiment of youths whom Hyder Ali was bringing up as a sort of Janissaries.