Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tippoo Sahib

TIPPOO SAHIB (1749-1799), sultan of Mysore, was the son of Hyder Ali (q.v.), and was born in 1749. He received a careful Mohammedan education, and was in structed in military tactics by the French officers in the employment of his father. In 1767 in the invasion of the Carnatic he commanded a corps of cavalry, and he subsequently distinguished himself in the Mahratta War of 1775-79. On the outbreak of the first Mysore War in 1780 he was put at the head of a large body of troops, with which he achieved several successes; in particular he entirely defeated Brathwaite on the banks of the Colerun in February 1782. He succeeded his father in December 1782, and in 1784 concluded a treaty of peace with the English. In the same year he assumed the title of sultan. In 1787-88 he subjugated the Nairs of Malabar, and in 1789 provoked English invasion by ravaging the territories of the rajah of Travancore. When the English entered Mysore in 1790, he retaliated by a counter-invasion, but he was ultimately compelled by Cornwallis's victory at Arikera, near Seringapatam, to purchase peace by the cession of the half of his dominions (16th March 1792). The English having deemed it necessary to renew hostilities in March 1799, he was in less than two months shut up in Seringapatam and accidentally killed during the siege (4th May 1799). See INDIA, vol. xii. pp. 803-4.