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The Indian empire : its peoples, history, and products / William Wilson Hunter
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HISTORY OF BRITISH RULE .

War with

Mysore ,

1780-84.

Death ofHaidarAH, 1782.

Lord Corn­ wallis

,

1786-93.

His

revenue

reforms.

midable enemy than the Maratha Confederacy. The recklessconduct of the Madras Government had roused the hostilityboth of Haidar All of Mysore and of the Nizam of the Deccan,the two strongest Musalman powers in India . These princesbegan to draw the Marathd.s into an alliance against the English .The diplomacy of Hastings won back the Nizam and theMaffitha Raja of Nagpur; but the army of Haidar Ah' felllike a thunderbolt upon the British possessions in the Karnatik .A strong detachment under Colonel Baillie was cut to piecesat Perambakam, and the Mysore cavalry ravaged the countryup to the walls of Madras. For the second time the Bengalarmy, stimulated by the energy of Hastings, saved the honourof the English name. He despatched Sir Eyre Coote , thevictor of Wandewash, to relieve Madras by sea, with all themen and money available, while Colonel Pearse marchedsouth overland to overawe the Raja of Nagpur and the Nizam.The war was hotly contested, for the aged Sir Eyre Coote hadlost his energy, and the Mysore army was not only welldisciplined and equipped, but skilfully handled by Haidar andhis son Tipu . Haidar died in 1782; and peace was finallyconcluded with Tipu in 1784, on the basis of a mutualrestitution of all conquests.

Two years later, Warren Hastings was succeeded by Lord Cornwallis , the first English nobleman of rank who undertookthe office of Governor-General of India . Between these twogreat names an interval of twenty months took place underSir John Macpherson, a Civil Servant of the Company (Feb.1785 to Sept. 1786). Lord Cornwallis twice held the highpost of Governor-General. His first rule lasted from 1786to 1793, and is celebrated for two eventsthe introductionof the Permanent Settlement into Bengal, and the secondMysore war. If the foundations of the system of civil admini-stration were laid by Hastings, the superstructure was raisedby Cornwallis . It was he who first entrusted criminal juris-diction to Europeans, and established the Nizamat SadrAdalat, or Supreme Court of Criminal Judicature, at Calcutta.It was he, also, who separated the functions of the DistrictCollector and Judge.

The judicial system thus organized in Bengal was ex-tended to Madras and Bombay, when those Presidencies alsoacquired territorial sovereignty. But the achievement mostfamiliarly associated with the name of Cornwallis is the Per-manent Settlement of the land revenue of Bengal. During