108 CONQUEST OF MYSORE. 



cordially concurred, although wholly ignorant of their 

 meaning ; imagining them to be the badges of a mystic as- 

 sociation, whose members were to devote themselves to his 

 aggrandizement. 



These proceedings were fully communicated to the gov- 

 ernor-general, who immediately transmitted to the court of 

 directors his decided opinion that they were equivalent to 

 a "public, unqualified, and unambiguous declaration of 

 war," and that "an immediate attack upon Tippoo Sultan 

 appeared to be demanded by the soundest maxims both of 

 justice and policy." These conclusions have been gen- 

 erally assented to by British officers and politicians ; yet 

 Mr. Mill, with his usual anxiety to escape national partiali- 

 ties, has not hesitated to assert that the above incidents af- 

 forded no ground of attacking, or even of dreading, Tippoo, 

 beyond what previously existed. No doubt, it is said, could 

 be entertained, ever since the last peace, of his deep hos- 

 tility against the English, and his disposition to embrace 

 any opportunity of regaining his lost territories. There 

 was, we admit, the most reasonable presumption of the ex- 

 istence, in his mind, of such sentiments. Well-founded, 

 however, as this suspicion was, the governor had no right 

 to proceed upon it without some overt act ; it being some- 

 thing very different from the positive conclusion of a treaty 

 aiming directly at the destruction of the British power in 

 India. It is argued, indeed, that this treaty, having been 

 entered into without any means of fulfilling it, might safely 

 have been regarded as nugatory, and altogether neglected. 

 This reasoning does not seem conclusive, unless there had 

 been some certainty that the sultan could not obtain the 

 means of carrying into effect those hostile schemes in 

 which he had so eagerly engaged. But it is well known 

 that he could depend upon the co-operation of the greatest 

 military power in the world, animated, too, with the most 

 rancorous feeling against Britain, and peculiarly desirous 

 to strike a blow against her in this very quarter. The only 

 security lav in the dominion of the seas, which England 

 had fully established ; though experience has shown that 

 no fleet, however tritrmphant, can hermetically seal the 

 ports of a great country, or even prevent a squadron from 

 finding its way to the most distant regions. This had just 

 been made evident, when the P'renuh, in the face of the 



