Page:Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.djvu/208

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204
TIPÚ SULTÁN

districts producing a like amount, and to the Peshwá districts yielding 264,000 pagodas. The remainder of the late ruler's possessions, with a revenue estimated at 1,374,100 pagodas, and exceeding in area the whole Mysore kingdom when Haidar Alí usurped the rule in 1761, was bestowed as a free gift on the infant son of the last Mysore Rájá, Chámráj, who died in 1796, on condition that an annual subsidy of seven lacs of star pagodas should be paid to the British Government, that a general control over the affairs of Mysore should be exercised by a Resident at his court, and that the island of Seringapatam should be ceded to the British Government in perpetuity. These liberal conditions were gratefully acknowledged by the widow of Chikka Krishnaráj and the widow of Chámráj in the following letter, dated June 24, 1799: –

'Your having conferred on our child the government of Mysore, Nagar, and their dependencies, and appointed Púrnaiya to be the Diwán, has afforded us the greatest happiness. Forty years have elapsed since our government ceased. Now you have favoured our boy with the government of this country, and nominated Púrnaiya to be his Diwán. We shall, while the sun and moon continue, commit no offence against your government. We shall at all times consider ourselves as under your protection and orders. Your having established us must for ever be fresh in the memory of our posterity, from one generation to another. Our offspring can never forget an attachment to your government, on whose support we shall depend.

Signed, Lachhmi Ammani.
Déwají Ammani.'