Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/229

Rh of officials who surrounded him very few succeeded in retaining his confidence, and only one Hindu, the Bráhman Púrnaiya, was admitted to his inner counsels. This undoubtedly able man remained with him to the end. So did his finance minister, Mír Muhammad Sádik, a name held in execration by the peasantry on account of his rapacity and extortions. Tipú's most trusted commander was Búrhán-ud-dín, whose sister he had married, and to whom he confided the conduct of many military enterprises. Búrhán was killed in 1790 at Satyamangalam. A cousin, named Kamar-ud-dín Alí Khán, the son of Alí Razá, whose sister Haidar Alí had married, was sometimes placed at the head of a body of troops. But he was generally accompanied by more experienced generals, and never entirely trusted, while both he and Búrhán-ud-dín were encompassed by the Sultán's spies.

The distrust which he thus evinced towards his ablest servants, and especially during the latter part of his rule, seems to have been a radical defect in his character. It naturally led to his being taken in and deceived on all sides, his troops alone remaining faithful to him, notwithstanding the perpetual changes which he made in matters affecting their organization, discipline, and pay. From his youth upwards he was deficient in stability and straightforwardness, so much so as to excite the wrath of his father. Haidar, besides publicly flogging Tipú at Chinkuráli as has been previously mentioned, exacted from him an agreement, in which the youth declared that, if he