Page:Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency.djvu/66

 58 SIR THOMAS MUNRO

method of making all princes keep the peace, not excepting even Tipii, is to make it dangerous for them to disturb your quiet. This can be done by a good army. We have one ; but as we have not money to pay it, we ought to have taken advantage of our successes for this purpose, and after reducing Seringapatam, have retained it and all the countries to the southward and westward of the Kaveri. By doing this, we could have maintained a good body of cavalry ; and so far from being left with a weak and extended frontier, the usual attendant of conquests, we should, from the nature of the country, have acquired one more compact and more strong than we have at present.

^ If peace is so desii-able an object, it would be wiser to have retained the power of preserving it in our hands, than to have left it to the caprice of Tipu, who, though he has lost half his revenue, has by no means lost half his power. He requires no com- bination, like us, of an able military governor, peace in Europe, and alhes in this country, to enable him to prosecute war successfully. He only wants to attack them singly when he will be more than a match for any of them ; and it will be strange if he does not find an opportunity when the confederates may not find it convenient to support the general cause. When we have a General of less ability than Lord Cornwallis at the head of the Government, (such men as we have lately seen commanding armies,) Tipii may safely try, by the means of Gooty, Chitaldriig, and Biddanore,