U^AR WITH TIPU 59
to recover the conquests of the Marathas and the Nizam. If Lord Cornwallis himself could not have reduced Tipii without the assistance of the Ma- rathas, — for there is no doubt that without them he could never, after falling back from Seringapatam in May, have advanced again beyond Bangalore, — if his integrity, his sound manly judgment, and his great military talents could have done nothing, what is to be hoped for from those whom we may expect to supply his room? We cannot look for better than
, or , or , men selected from the army
as great military characters. But these gentlemen themselves are as well convinced as any private in the army, how cheap Tipii held them, and how little honour he could have gained by foiling them. One, or rather two, sallied forth; and after spouting some strange, unintelligible stuff, like ancient Pistol, and the ghosts of Romans, lost their magazines by forming them in front of the army, and then spent the remainder of the campaign in running about the country, after what was ludicrously called by the army the invisible power, asking which way the bull ran ! ' The other, in May last, on a detachment of Tipti's marching towards him without ever seeing them, with an army superior to Sir Eyre Coote's at Porto Novo, shamefully ran away, leaving his camp and his hospital behind ; and in advancing in February, a second time, when Tipu had lost the greatest part of his army, he allowed a few straggling horse to cut off a great part of his camp equipage, and would have
