Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/181

Rh was in all probability a scamp of the first water, and his pretensions were ridiculed by the Sultán's officers, that sovereign, who in his own eyes was wiser than all his court, determined to purchase his vessel and send ambassadors in it to the Isle of France (Mauritius), to solicit from the Governor the aid of a fleet and an army. From a note in Tipú's own handwriting it appears that he was singularly ignorant both of geography and history. The following are entries in this document, which professes to be a catalogue raisonné of the heads of departments of the French administration: –

'Names of the three islands belonging to the English – Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey.' 'On the English island there was once the Rájá of a tribe called Coosea (Ecosse?) a hundred years ago, the English Rájá put the Rájá of the Cooseas to death, and took possession of his country.'

On April 2, 1797, Tipú addressed a letter to the authorities (Sardárs) of Mauritius, professing his attachment to the French, and dwelling upon the friendship which had long subsisted between them and the Mysore State from the time of his father, Haidar Alí. 'The shameless, thieving, robbing English, of themselves incompetent,' had, he said, leagued with the Maráthás and the Mughal (Nizám), and forcing him to make peace, had extorted from the 'God-given State' three crores and thirty lacs of rupees, besides wresting from him half his finest provinces. He therefore sought aid from the French to expel the iniquitous English from Hindustán,