rushed to seize him; Tippoo gave him a cimeter
wound in the knee, the soldier then fired, and Tippoo fell dead. The
fortress was strongly provided. Its works mounted two hundred and eighty
guns. In its arsenal were found four hundred and fifty-one brass guns,
and four hundred and seventy-eight iron guns. Stores of every kind were
found in abundance. The storm scarcely exceeded an hour. Thus fell the
dynasty of the great Hyder Ali; and thus was extinguished a dream of
conquest, which once embraced the Empire of Hindostan.

Thus, by promptitude of action and sagacity of council, this formidable
war was extinguished in little more than eight weeks; a territory
producing a million sterling a-year was added to the Company's
dominions; and the whole fabric of a power which it had cost the genius
of Hyder a life to raise, and which once threatened to overthrow the
empire of the English in India, was broken down and dismantled for ever.
But Mysore was given to the family of its former Hindoo Rajah, and
simply reduced to the limits of its original territory; the conquests of
Hyder having been alone lopped away.

In England, the thanks of Parliament were given to the governor-general
and the army, and the former was made a marquess. The treasure taken in
Seringapatam, with the various arms and stores, was subsequently valued
at forty-five millions of star pagodas, (the pagoda being about eight
shillings sterling;) General Harris, as commander-in-chief, receiving an
eighth of the whole, or three hundred and twenty-four thousand nine
hundred and seven pagodas. His right to this sum was afterwards disputed
at law, but the claim was ultimately allowed. One hundred thousand
pounds was offered by the army to the Marquess, but honourably declined
by him as encroaching on the general prize-money. But the Court of
Directors, in recompense, voted him five thousand pounds a-year for
twenty years.

We now come to another important period in the career of this
distinguished servant of the crown. The French expedition to Egypt had
been expressly aimed at the British power in India. The Marquess
Wellesley instantly conceived the bold project of attacking the French
in the rear, by the march of an Indian army to Egypt, to co-operate with
an army from home.

The question of occupying Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, was then
discussed; and objected to by the marquess, on the several grounds of
its unfitness for a naval station, for a comme