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172 a party of twenty Travancoreans, from under a close cover, opened a brisk fire on their flank. The commanding officer fell, upon which the whole body was thrown into irretrievable confusion. The mass of fugitives drove before them a detachment which was advancing to their support, and who again impelled those behind. Many of the men, thrown down, were trampled to death, and the ditch was filled with heaps of bodies. The Sultan himself was borne along by the torrent, and some servants with difficulty conveyed him over the ditch, after he had twice fallen, and suffered such contusions as occasioned a lameness from which he never entirely recovered. His palanquin, the bearers of which had been killed in the crowd, was left behind; and his seals, rings, and other ornaments fell into the hands of the enemy. He hastened forward, partly on foot and partly in a small carriage, and arrived at his camp in the most miserable plight, after losing two thousand of his men!

We shall not attempt to describe the rage and humiliation of Tippoo at seeing his fine army thus completely repulsed by a despised enemy; but he made a vow that he would not leave the encampment till he had retrieved and avenged the disaster. At length his arrangements being completed, about the beginning of April, 1790, he opened regular batteries against this contemptible wall, and soon made a breach nearly three quarters of a mile in extent. The troops of Travancore, thus exposed in the open field, fled with little resistance, and he soon saw the whole country lying defenceless before him.

The Marquis Cornwallis had arrived in 1786 as Governor-General, with a view to effect a complete reform in the system of Indian policy; one of his leading instructions being to avoid, by every possible means, war with the native powers. The proceedings of the Sultan, however, occasioned an early change in his views; and he then considered it necessary, or at least highly expedient, to enter upon an extended warfare with the view of completely humbling the power of Mysore. A new treaty,