Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/218

214 and seven at Májídábád or Sadáshivgarh. The line-of-battle ships were divided into first and second class. The former were to mount seventy-two guns, the latter sixty-two of three different classes of calibre, while the frigates were to carry forty-six guns. The Sultán kindly sent a model to the Admiralty Board for their guidance in building the ships, ordering them to have copper bottoms, and prescribing where the timber for them was to be cut. Minute details were furnished as to the complement of the ships, and the pay of all grades. It was amusingly ordered that twenty of the Mír Bahar, or those highest in rank, were to receive a horse allowance, and that when the Mír Yam visited the fleet, they should get a specially good dinner, with fruit, at the expense of the Government. This grand scheme for creating a navy came to nothing. Before the ships could be built the Sultán's rule was extinguished.

Tipú showed his orthodoxy as a good Musalmán in strictly prohibiting the sale of intoxicating drinks. Although his method of proceeding was somewhat arbitrary, and he cared little about 'local option,' it must be admitted that in this department he showed himself a sensible reformer. He did indeed permit M. Lally to open one shop in his camp for the vending of spirituous liquors, but he firmly restricted the use of it to the French soldiers in his service. In writing to the local official at Bangalore in 1787, Tipú directed him to take written