70 WAS WITH MYSORE. 



liar to India and to the higher ranks in that country. 

 When decidedly formed it baffles the skill of the native 

 physicians, and proves invariably fatal. He expired on the 

 7th December, 1782, at an age not precisely ascertained, 

 but believed to have exceeded eighty. Of the numerous 

 race of Indian adventurers he was perhaps the most re- 

 markable. Without the first elements of education, unable 

 to write or read, he made his way to the throne of a mighty 

 kingdom, which he administered with brilliant talent and 

 profound political sagacity, though without the least tinc- 

 ture of honour, principle, or humanity. His death formed 

 a crisis the most alarming for the power which he had 

 reared. An Indian army is held together by no sentiment 

 of patriotism, public duty, or professional character, but 

 simply by fealty to their chief, and to him individually. 

 When he disappears his soldiers are converted from an or- 

 ganized body to a scattered crowd of individuals, who 

 either disperse entirely or are formed into bands, each fol- 

 lowing the leader who attaches them to him by his char- 

 acter, or can bribe them by his wealth. This danger was 

 great as it respected the family of Hyder, whose active 

 mind was the soul of every movement in the court and 

 army. His sagacity, however, enabled him to choose in- 

 struments who, in the hour of trial, proved faithful to him- 

 self and his house. 



The affairs of his treasury were carried on by the joint 

 instrumentality of Poomea and Kishen Rao, two Bramins 

 of opposite sects, speaking different languages, and serving 

 as checks upon each other. These two persons, as soon 

 as they saw Hyder's last hour approaching, formed in con- 

 cert the extraordinary design of concealing it from the army 

 and the world. The state of his health had for some time 

 prevented him from receiving any but his most confidential 

 servants ; to them the ministers, with awful injunctions of 

 secrecy, communicated the fact ; while to all the others 

 they gave regular reports of the progress of Hyder's 

 malady, which they represented to be of a favourable na- 

 ture. Only Mohammed Ameen, cousin-german to the 

 monarch, with another chief, formed the design of raising 

 to power his second son, a youth of defective intellect, as 

 a pageant in whose name they themselves might govern. 

 But this plot was discovered ; and they were apprehended 



