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186 no longer spoke the Sultan's contempt and aversion for his European enemies.

The capital of Mysore, however, contained other proofs of Tippoo's feelings towards the English; and these also were to disappear. The enfranchisement of prisoners under the treaty of 1784 had even at this time not been perfectly carried out; and among the victims of the Sultan's perfidy were twenty English youths, who, having received the same kind of education which is given to the dancing girls of the East, were destined to delight the ear and eye of their enslaver by the graces of song and gesture. To relieve himself from the inconvenience to be apprehended from these witnesses to his treachery, assassination offered the easiest and most effectual means; and, consequently, according to the moral code of Tippoo, the best. The youths were murdered, and the course of crime was followed up by the secret murder of other prisoners, who, like them, had been unlawfully detained.

Such were the results of the alarm produced by the fall of Bangalore, and the anticipation of an attack upon Seringapatam. Hitherto the Sultan had confined himself to a desultory warfare, endeavouring to cut off the British by detachments, in the manner which, during the last contest, had been so successful. But in his campaign with Lord Cornwallis he had been unable to achieve any exploit of this description; and now the danger of his capital, and, it is said, the reproaches of his wives, urged him to hazard a general action rather than allow it to be formally invested. He accordingly drew up his army with great judgment, so as to cover his capital; its right protected by the Cauvery, and its left by a chain of hills, with a deep swampy ravine, the passage of which was defended by batteries running along the whole of the front.

The difficulties of attacking an enemy in such a position were obviously great; but having ascertained the practicability of crossing a ridge on the right of the English army, from the high road to Seringapatam, where