THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIREearlier disappointments he still hoped for French support and, with
remarkably bad timing considering the imminence of the revolution, sent
ambassadors to Paris. Hastings’ successor in India was Lord Cornwallis,
who had previously lost the war against the American colonists.
Immediately devoting his attention to the campaign against Tipu Sultan,
he concluded an alliance with the Peshwa and the nizam and defeated
Tipu in 1792. Tipu Sultan had to return the territories which he had
earlier taken away from the Marathas and the nizam and he also had to
cede to the British some districts to the south of Madras and on the west
coast. This was the beginning of British territorial rule in South India.
Cornwallis could have dismembered Tipu’s realm completely, had he not
wanted to retain him as a counterweight against the Peshwa and the
nizam. Because of the latter consideration, Tipu was treated rather
leniently, although the British did take away his sons as hostages until he
paid the indemnity imposed upon him. Tipu was not satisfied with the
limited role cut out for him by the British: he quickly paid up, recovered
his sons and prepared for his next attack. In order to do all this he had to
increase the land revenue demand, eliminate middlemen and assess the
peasants directly. The demand was geared to the productive capacity of
the soil and revenue collection was administered with great efficiency.
This paved the way for the rather rigorous British revenue settlement of
South India in subsequent years.
While preparing for the next attack on the British the indefatigable Tipu
once more contacted the French and tried to humour the revolutionary
government. In his capital he established a Jacobin club, whose members
were entitled to address him as ‘Citoyen Tipu’—a truly revolutionary
measure for an Indian ruler. But a further turn of events in France
prevented the dispatch of French troops to the subcontinent. Instead,
Napoleon’s Egyptian adventure and reports about Tipu’s plans forced the
hands of the British. The new governor general, Lord Wellesley, and his
brother Arthur (later Duke of Wellington), designed a comprehensive
campaign against Tipu. Arthur in a way performed a dress rehearsal for
Waterloo at the head of the nizam’s forces. Tipu was defeated and died
defending his capital, Seringapatam, in 1799. The British annexed north
and south Kanara, Wynad, Coimbatore and Dharapuram, and in the much
reduced Mysore state they reinstated the old Hindu dynasty whose throne
Haider Ali had usurped.
The struggle of supremacy was now clearly decided in favour of the
British. Only one major enemy was left: the Peshwa, Baji Rao II, the son of
Raghunath. The British isolated him in the following years by making
friends with the maharajas of Gwalior, Indore and Baroda, who all
retained their territories under British rule. With his influence restricted to
the region around Pune, the Peshwa was no longer a serious threat to
British power in India.