all five: hence there cannot be the slightest doubt of your all being bastards. This is about the seventh time that you have acted treacherously towards the Government, and plundered our armies. I have now vowed to the true God that if you ever again conduct yourselves traitorously or wickedly, I will not revile or molest a single individual among you, but making Ahmadis (Musalmáns) of the whole of you, transplant you all from this country to some other; by which means, from being illegitimate, your progeny or descendants may become legitimate, and the epithet of "sons of sinful mothers" may no longer belong to your tribe.'
This expression of his ideas was not dictated by any tender feeling for women in general. A letter to Búrhán-ud-dín in 1786, in which he directs Búrhán to cross the Tungábhadra from Anavatti, runs thus: 'You must leave the women and other rubbish, together with the superfluous baggage of your army, behind.' In fact, the Sultán, though he left a dozen sons behind him, does not appear to have been, like his father, very susceptible to the charms of the fair sex. He deemed women of little account, with the sole exception of his mother whose influence over him was great.
There is little to say about Tipú's revenue administration, which, owing to his frequent wars and his absence from his capital, naturally fell into the hands of his subordinates. Although the old system of collecting the Government dues which was in force in the time of the Hindu Rájás was still preserved, the want of proper supervision led to numerous exactions and consequent discontent, of which he remained in
