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 CHAPTER XVI

Haidar's Character and Administration

Before narrating the circumstances which followed Haidar's demise, and the course of events during the reign of his son Tipú Sultán, it may be appropriate to refer to the character, public and private, of the distinguished soldier who from obscurity raised himself to a throne, and made his name a terror to his foes. As regards the memorable warlike operations in which he took a leading part, the accounts derived from English and French sources are so conflicting, owing to the rivalry of these nations, and their struggles for supremacy, that an absolutely impartial estimate of his military reputation is well-nigh impossible. It may safely be asserted, however, that in their dealings with the natives of India at this period the French were more sympathetic than their hereditary enemies, the English. Although the French did not, like the Portuguese, lose their nationality by too intimate social relations with the people of the country, their attitude to them was more genial and attractive than that of the English, whose national temperament, although compelling respect, and, as in the case of Clive, unbounded military