was accordingly concluded. By a curious coincidence, overtures for a close alliance with him were also made at the same time by the Government of Madras, with the promises of co-operation in case of attack from any foreign enemy; but these seem to have had no other effect than to heighten his irritation.
At this crisis the war consequent upon the American contest broke out between France and England, and was extended to India, where the authorities of the former power speedily opened a communication with Hyder, whom they found ready to enter into all their views. As soon as hostilities commenced, the English Government formed a comprehensive plan for the reduction of all the French possessions in India, and Pondicherry soon fell. To this conquest Hyder made no opposition; he even pretended to congratulate the English on their success; but when they announced their intention of reducing Mahé, on the Malabar coast, he decidedly objected, urging that the territory around it having been conquered by him, was now included in his dominions. This, however, did not deter the British from sending a body of troops, who speedily reduced the place, though Hyder gave all the aid he could at the moment supply, in order to defend it.
At length in the month of June, 1780, Hyder, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the Confederacy, the most formidable the English ever had to contend with, entered the dominions of his detested adversaries at the head of an army capable, from its numbers, of bidding defiance to all resistance. It consisted of 28,000 cavalry, a battalion of Europeans, eleven battalions of Topasses,[1] twenty-three battalions of regular Sepoys, an immense train of artillery, and an innumerable host of irregulars; exclusive of 30,000 chosen troops detached under Tippoo Sahib against a force which had been sent from Bombay under Colonel Humberstone, and was ravaging the Malabar. With this formidable army Hyder entered
- ↑ Descendants of Portuguese, so called from Topee, the Hindostanic word for hat, an article of dress which the Hindoos never wear.
