In compliance with his solicitations, Sir John Lindsay was deputed from London to his court, with full powers to act, irrespectively of the Madras Government. The latter found themselves hampered in their action when this delegate insisted on their joining the Maráthás and Muhammad Alí in crushing Haidar, with whom they had a mutual defensive alliance. It redounds to the credit of Haidar Alí that, when the Maráthás proposed, in 1771, to settle their differences with him by an engagement that he should assist them in subjugating the eastern provinces, he made known their proposals to the English authorities. He frankly stated his opinion that such a union would give the Maráthás so predominant an influence that it would seriously imperil eventually his own position, and added that, if his alliance were rejected by the Madras Government, he should have no alternative but to seek assistance from the French. In 1773 he renewed his endeavours to procure a treaty, but his proposals were again frustrated by the insidious policy of Muhammad Alí, who, while urging the English to decline Haidar's advances, was at the same time assuring that chief of his anxious desire to see them driven out of India. With this professed object, he even sent an embassy the next year to Seringapatam to beguile Haidar into a conviction of his sincerity. But Haidar was not to be deceived by his false protestations, and dismissed his envoys in contempt after they had been many months in Mysore. From this date Haidar abandoned all hopes of contracting
