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Susan Stronge REDISCOVERING TIPU SULTAN’S TREASURY TREASURY Few stories in the annals of British involvement in India are as dramatic as their storming of the citadel of the mier of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, in 1799. The legacy of the event as preserved in the arts of British India, and even more so in those of Britain itself, is very marked. Western artists in India produced paintings and drawings of the key sites in the campaign, the monuments and fortifications of the region, and portraits of its leading characters, reproductions of which were disseminated widely in Britain as engravings.1 At home, artists used their imagination to depict the discovery of the body of Tipu Sultan in the immediate aftermath of the siege, and the siege itself was SULTAN'S re-enacted in London as an entertainment by Astley’s, the precursor of the modern circus.2 A huge panorama of the Siege of Seringapatam was created by the young Scottish artist Robert Ker Porter in 1800, its details taken Trom the most authentic and correct Information relative to the Scenery of the Place, the Costume of the Soldiery, and the various Circumstances of the TIPU Attack.’ It was exhibited in London to enthusiastic crowds.3 Yet these events, which produced such a range of artistic responses from the side of the victors, were responsible for the almost complete obliteration of evidence of the ruler’s own much more varied artistic patronage during his brief reign, which had begun in 1782. Over the last decades, scholars have systematically tracked down material dispersed from the royal treasury at Tipu Sultan’s Capital known to him as Srirangapatan, or simply ‘Patan’, and to the British as Seringapatam, but discoveries are still to be made.4 One such is a pair of finials in the Victoria and Albert Museum made of heavily cast silver, thickly gilded and with chased decoration (fig. 1). Never previously associated with Tipu Sultan, their distinctive form and ornamentation leave no doubt as to their provenance, as will be seen. Tipu Sultan Tipu Sultan was the son of a Muslim military adventurer, Haidar Ali, whose outstanding talents soon made him indispensable to the Hindu mier of REDISCOVERING Mysore, a kingdom that had been independent since its foundation in 1578, in the wake of the disintegration of the great Vijayanagar empire. Haidar was one of the first military commanders in the subcontinent to employ Europeans to serve in his army and, more crucially, experts who brought the latest, very advanced, Western weapons technology and techniques of army discipline. In the confused political conditions of the mid-18th century, when regional boundaries and alliances were constantly changing due to the disintegration of the Mughal empire, military engagements were frequent and the opportunities to expand, or lose, territory were many. When Haidar Ali successfully led the Mysore army to repel an attack by the Marathas in 1758, he was regarded as Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 08:27:16AM the saviour of the state and by 1761 had become mier in all but name.5 via free access 151 Figure i Pair of finials, silver, cast and gilt with chased decoration, Victoria and Albert Museum, IPN 2599 &A. Courtesy of the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum When Tipu Sultan was born, Haidar Ali ensured that he was given the Standard education of a Muslim prince in India at the time, meaning that he was necessarily familiar with Arabic, but also read the classics of Persian literature; in addition, he was proficient in Urdu and Kannada. Tipu Sultan’s literary interests were reflected in the contents of his library, which also contained some of his own compositions.6 As soon as he was old enough, he began to join his father on the battlefield, increasing his military prowess until he was able to take command of particular campaigns himself. Together they extended Mysore’s borders. This made conflict with the British East India Company at the time almost inevitable, given the expansionist tendencies of the Company, their awareness that the increasing stability and wealth of Mysore would threaten their own interests in the subcontinent, and the presence of the French - their arch-enemy - in the Mysore army. Anglo-Mysore wars Four wars took place between Mysore and the British between 1766 and 1799. The first ended in 1769 with Haidar dictating peace terms to the British forces near their settlement of Fort St George, Madras. A second conflict took place in 1780, ending in 1784 after enormous losses on both sides, and the capture by the Mysore army of British officers. Some would survive their years of captivity to publish reminiscences of the misery of life in captivity. Haidar Ali had died during this conflict, at the end of 1782, and Tipu Sultan was nominated his legitimate successor. He took formal power, though acknowledging the nominal supremacy of the almost powerless Mughal emperor, as other regional miers also did. A third conflict with the British under the command of Lord Cornwallis ended in disaster for Tipu Sultan in 1792, when he was forced to make peace and cede half of his kingdom to the British, while handing over two of his small sons as hostages to ensure that he kept to his part of the agreement. The final phase began in 1798 with the arrival of Lord Mornington as the new Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 08:27:16AM Governor-General. His expansionist aims for his country's presence in viathe free access 152 subcontinent coincided with continuing conflict in Europe between England and France. The small French presence in Mysore, and the declaration of an alliance between them and Tipu Sultan proclaimed in French Mauritius, was deemed to be dangerous. In reality, there was little prospect of French troops being despatched to Mysore in any significant numbers.7 Nevertheless, even as letters of peace were being written to Seringapatam, preparations were quietly being made for war. In February 1799, the army began to close in on the fortified Capital, with their Commander-in-Chief General Harris aware that the affair had to be settled before the beginning of May, before the monsoon made the river Kaveri impassable, thus cutting off his troops from Tipu Sultan’s well-stocked citadel. The decisive attack took place on 4 May. The army stormed across the breach at 1 p.m., and by 2.30 p.m. the victory was won.8 Contemporary sources recount the details of the violent assault: The column [advancing on the breach] carried everything before them. The enemy were shot and bayoneted without mercy. Some leaped over the parapet into the outer ditch, or fausse-braye, and were either killed by the fall, or shot from the rampart above; others plunged into the inner wet ditch, and were drowned. Those who attempted to escape to the inner fort, or town, by the Delhi gate, in the north face, were met in the arch by those who were driven out by the troops which had entered the place.9 As the invaders crossed the second rampart, the panic inside the city increased. Thousands were said to have thrown down their arms to flee, with some trying to escape through the Bangalore gateway. However, that gate was closed and because it opened inwards, could not be opened against the tide of people. Then, due to ‘some unknown cause’, the gate caught fire and those who tried to run back the way they had come, many of them simply the inhabitants of the city, were trapped and crushed to death.10 During the onslaught, Tipu Sultan was himself killed, and was found much later, under a pile of bodies. The ramparts breached, fierce looting began. Reports made at the time describe soldiers and their officers seizing gold coins from the palace treasury, with houses everywhere being raided. The outer gates were eventually locked in an attempt to prevent anyone escaping with their plunder, and sentinels were posted with instructions not to let any individual through without a passport. However some simply threw their new possessions over the walls to waiting friends, or lowered them down on ropes. Plunder and prize Finally, the young Colonel Arthur Wellesley (brother of the Governor- General, and later to become famous as the Duke of Wellington) took command of the situation, giving orders for looters to be hanged or flogged. Without this action, he wrote in a letter to General Harris seeking his authorisation, ‘it is vain to expect to stop the plunder’ and he concluded that, already, ‘the property of everyone is gone’.11 The authority given, a few men were hanged, many more were flogged, and the plundering finally ceased.12 However, the major dispersal of Tipu Sultan’s treasury was still to come. After the initial raid, guards had quickly been sent to the entrance of the chamber, thus protecting most of what was inside. The next stage was for a ‘Prize Committee’ to be set up, to organise valuation of the contents. In this Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 08:27:16AM context, an important distinction was made between ‘plunder’ and ‘prizevia ’free. access 153 As the American scholar Richard Davis notes, unregulated plunder transgressed 18th century Acts of Parliament (thereby justifying the calls to have plunderers so severely punished), whereas ‘prize’ was the process following victory whereby the booty was carefully assessed and distributed to the troops according to rank, and could therefore be defended as a legitimate process.13 On-site auctions were usual; at Seringapatam it is clear that local goldsmiths and jewellers quickly moved in to make shrewd purchases from individuals, whether looters or recipients of prize allotments, who were unable to distinguish between valuable precious stones and coloured glass.