ripe he did
his best to keep his oath. When in 1779 France declared war against
England, Haidar declared in favor of the French. He gave his sword to
the service of the Grand Confederacy in 1778 and prepared to march upon
Madras. The President and the Council were taken unawares. It was not
until Haidar had marched with fire and sword into the Carnatic, and
that the smoke of the villages he destroyed in his progress could be
seen from Madras, that they learned that Haidar was in earnest and not
merely making a menace in the hope of frightening the English into an
advantageous treaty. Hastings himself seems to have been convinced
that Haidar did not mean to attack the Company, but when the Mysore
prince's purpose was plain every effort was made to stay his onset.
Lord Macartney, although not one of the Company's servants, was made
Governor of Madras. Haidar was compelled for the time to abandon his
attempt upon the Carnatic. In 1783 his hatred of the English was ended
by his sudden death. But he bequeathed it as a rich legacy to his son
Tippu, a man as daring and as ambitious as his sire.

Hastings won away by concessions the Mahrattas and the Nizam from the
cause of Tippu. But Tippu had his French allies, and Tippu and his
French allies carried on a campaign successful enough to force the
English practically to appeal for a peace, which Tippu accorded in a
treaty flattering at once to his pride and to his ambition. It was a
somewhat dearly bought peace for the English, for Tippu, regarding the
advances of the English as a proof of their weakness, made demands far
more arrogant than his successes justified, and those demands were
agreed to by the English envoys. The treaty with Tippu had to be made
on a basis of mutual restitution of conquests, so that England was left
at the end of the struggle against Mysore with a great loss both of men
and money, and no advantages, territorial or strategical, to set
against the loss. Even the peace upon these terms obtained did not
prove {267} a lasting peace. Tippu was not unnaturally tempted by the
concessions of the English into further displays of arrogance which in
time inevitably resulted in another war. But by the time that war
broke out Warren Hastings had returned to England and had no further
personal concern with the affairs of British India.

In the mean time Hastings's feud with his antagonists on the
Council-board continued. A kind of reconciliation, a k