TIPPOO SAHIB, Sultan of Mysore, and son of Hyder Ali (q.v.), was b. in 1749. Efforts were made to carefully instruct him in the various branches of learning culti vated by _Mohammedans; but Tippoo much preferred the practice of athletic exercises, and the companionship of the French officers in his father's service, from whom he acquired a considerable acquaintance with European military tactics. This knowledge he put to effective use during his father's various wars, by completely routing col. Bailey at Perimbakmn (Sept. 10, 1780), and (Feb. 18, 1782) col. Braithwaite on the banks of the Kolerun in Tanjore, though these were his only important engagements with the British forces in which he could boast of success. On the death of his father, he was crowned with little ceremony, returning at once to the head of his army, which was then engaged with the British near Arcot. On April 28, captured and put to death most of the garrison of Bednore; but news of the peace between France and England having reached his French allies, they retired from active service, and Tippoo ultimately agreed to a treaty (Mar. 11, 1784), stipulating for the status qua before the war. During the continuance of this peace, he occupied himself in regulating the internal administration of Mysore, sent ambassadors in 1787 to France to stir up a war with Britain, and failing in this, at length so far allowed his inveterate hatred of the English to overcome his judgment, as to invade (April, 1790) the protected state of Travancore. In the ensuing war (1790-92), the British, under col. Stuart and lord Cornwallis, were aided by the Mahrattas and the Nizam, who detested their powerful and aggressive neighbor equally from fear and religious hatred (Tippoo being a fanatical Mohammedan); and though the tactics of the sultan in laying waste the Carnatic almost to the very gates of Madras baf field his opponents for a time, he was ultimately compelled (Mar. 16, 1792) to resign one
half of his dominions, pay an indemnity of 3,030 lacs of rupees, restore all prisoners, and give his two sons as hostages for his fidelity. Nevertheless, his secret intrigues in India against the British were almost immediately resumed; another embassy was sent to the French; and the invasion of Egypt by the latter in 1798, and Tippoo's machinations. having become known to the governor-genera! almost contemporaneously, it was resolved to punish the perfidious sultan. Hostilities commenced in Mar., 1799; and two months after, Tippoo was driven from the open field, attacked in his capital of Seringapatam, and after a gallant resistance, slain. He was buried in his father's mausoleum, May 5, 1799, during a storm of thunder and lightning, which caused the death of several Euro peans and natives. His government of Mysore after 1792 was of a most oppressive char acter, yet Tippoo was extremely popular, and after his death was esteemed by the Moham medans as a martyr to the faith of Islam. Of the chief articles of zirta with which his palace abounded, many are now in Fife house, Whitehall (having been removed thither from the East India house in Leadenhall street), as also the half of his library, the other half being preserved at fort William, Bombay.