In 1786, the year after Warren Hastings’ return to England, Cornwallis was sent to India as Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief. He was not in any way attached to the East India Company, and in this way a new era commenced.
Cornwallis was soon compelled to enter into war with Tippoo Sahib, and at first the ‘Tiger of Mysore’ made things very difficult for him. For a time, however, peace was patched up, and Lord Wellesley, the brother of the future Duke of Wellington, succeeded as Governor-General.
As we shall see elsewhere, Napoleon had set his heart on the conquest of Egypt, with a view to depriving England of her colonies. After Egypt, he had every hope of conquering India, and for this reason Tippoo was a very promising personage with whom to make a secret treaty against the English. Although the French supremacy was a thing of the past, yet many native princes retained French officers to drill their troops, and their influence was not unlike the control that the Germans exercised over the Turks in 1915. When Lord Wellesley arrived, he found himself faced by treacherous Indian rulers, French intrigue, and rebellious natives.
In 1799 war again broke out with Tippoo, when Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the future ‘Iron Duke,’ was one of the British commanders. The Highlanders under Wellesley took an active part in defeating the Indian troops in every engagement, until at last Tippoo was surrounded in his capital Seringapatam.
Some idea of the service of the H.L.I. in India from 1780 onwards until 1806 may be gauged by the fact that no less than five names—Carnatic, Sholinghur, Mysore, Hindoostan, and Seringapatam—were added to the regimental colours.
In the Mysore campaign the 71st H.L.I. took part in all the important battles leading up to the heroic storming of Seringapatam.
Colonel Wellesley, as stated above, discovered that Tippoo Sahib was at the heart of a new French intrigue, and decided that the time had come for action. With this end in view he despatched an army numbering 43,000 men to break his power for ever, and take his stronghold by storm.
But so much time was spent in clearing the ground covering the approaches to the fortress, that on April 14, 1799, it was seen that unless the supplies of the army were to give out the place must be carried at all costs. It was no easy matter. Seringapatam lay between two branches of the river Cavery, while to its front were entrenchments, and behind these the artillery and fortifications of the city itself.
Trench warfare is so familiar to-day that there will be no difficulty in understanding the initial steps in the battle. After some days devoted to undermining the enemy’s trenches—the Highlanders, under Wellesley, rushed the position, driving the Indians into Seringapatam.
Following upon that success the British guns settled down to make a breach in the walls of the city, but by the 2nd of May, when that was accomplished, the supplies of the army had run very low and as Mr. Fortescue has written, “so desperate was the situation that the General fully resolved, if necessary, to throw his entire army into the breach, since success was positively necessary to its existence.”