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Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency
Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency Author:John Bradshaw Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II War With Haidar Alt' Sir Thomas Munro's life and work in India may be divided into four periods. The first, from 1780 to 1792, was purely military... more », and during most of these twelve years he was on active service in the wars with Haidar Ali and Tipii Sultan. In the second, 1792-1807,he was employed in the civil administration of the country: from 1792 to 1799 in the Baramahal. which had been ceded by Tipu; in 1799-1800 in Kanara, and from 1800 to 1807 in the Districts still known as the Ceded Districts, acquired by treaty with the Nizam in 1800. The third period, 1814-1818, after an interval of six years in Europe, was spent partly in civil and partly in military duty. He was sent out by the Court of Directors in 1814 as 'Principal Commissioner for the revision of the internal administration of the Madras territories'—-judicial and financial; and during 1817-1818 he was in command of a division of the army in the last Maratha War. The fourth period, after a short visit to England in 1819, was that of his governorship of Madras from June 8, 1820, until his death on July 6.1827. The year in which Munro arrived at Madras was the commencement of a critical period in the history of British India. The conduct of the Madras Government—Sir Thomas Rumbold, the Governor, and Sir Hector Munro, the Commander-in-Chief, being at variance with the other members of Council—gave an opening which neither the French nor the other enemies of English supremacy were slow to make use of. Haidar Ali of Mysore, and the Nizam of the Deccan, the two strongest Musalman powers in India, endeavoured to draw the Marathas into an alliance against England, but the diplomacy of Hastings won over the Nizam and the Maratha Raja of Nagpur. Haidar, at the head of a numerous and well- appointed army,...« less