Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/150

146 Tipú in his hostile proceedings, and exacting reparation. He had, indeed, proposed to conduct personally the operations which he deemed necessary, but learning that General Medows had been appointed Governor of Madras, he was content to leave to that experienced officer the prosecution of the impending war. When Tipú was apprised of the preparations being made to oppose him, he imagined that he might cajole the new Governor as he had done his predecessor, and wrote accordingly, suggesting that matters might be amicably settled by envoys on both sides, and asking for a safe-conduct for his own ambassador, but was met with the stern reply that an attack upon an ally of the English was tantamount to a declaration of war upon themselves. The Mysore ruler, accustomed to the procrastination and hesitation which he had previously encountered at the hands of the Madras authorities, took this reply as being significant, and immediately left Coimbatore for Seringapatam to make preparations for defending his territory.

It may be questioned whether the plan of operations conceived by General Medows was not of greater magnitude than was practicable with the means at his disposal. His army was so distributed that the main portion under his own command should reduce the whole of Coimbatore from Karúr, on the Trichinopoli frontier, westward to Pálghát, and then ascending the Gajalhátti Pass, should enter Mysore above the Gháts, while a separate force under