The Dawn of British Land Revenue and the Permanent Settlement

In August 1789, Lord Cornwallis introduced his Permanent Settlement to regulate land taxation in Bengal, assuring the East India Company directors that his plan had been “carefully calculated to secure and likely to increase your revenues.” Yet, if the Company and the British government had hoped this new system would balance their books, those hopes were soon buried under the dust of war. Both the Company’s directors and Prime Minister William Pitt’s ministers had viewed Warren Hastings’ military campaigns as immoral, ruinously expensive, and destabilizing. Cornwallis sought to rein in such excesses, but India’s volatile political landscape made restraint impossible.

Hastings had earlier negotiated territorial concessions with the Marathas to prevent their alliance with Hyder Ali, the formidable Sultan of Mysore. This bought only temporary respite. Over two decades, Hyder Ali—a Muslim ruler who had seized power from a Hindu dynasty—had transformed Mysore into the strongest southern Indian state since the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire in the 17th century. His administration built roads, bridges, and thriving market towns, while also patronizing Hindu temples and shrines. Even Cornwallis begrudgingly acknowledged Mysore as a “garden kingdom.”

The Wars Against Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan

Yet it was Cornwallis himself who ultimately marched against Mysore, uprooting this flourishing state. After Hyder Ali’s death in 1782, his shrewd and capable son, Tipu Sultan, inherited the throne. The British systematically demonized Tipu, portraying him as a bloodthirsty tyrant and “usurper” of India’s ancient constitution—as if Britain itself were the arbiter of Indian legitimacy. This narrative of “liberating” Indians from their own rulers had already taken hold in both India and Britain. To make matters worse, Tipu openly admired Revolutionary France, welcoming French military advisors to train his forces in European warfare.

In May 1791, Cornwallis took to the field for the first time since Yorktown. His campaign against Tipu’s fortress at Seringapatam was a logistical nightmare: troops floundered in monsoon mud, supply lines stretched thin, and communications broke down. Yet, against the odds, the British army held together. A renewed offensive in 1792 forced Tipu to surrender half his kingdom and send his two sons as hostages to Cornwallis. The image of a benevolent Cornwallis holding the turbaned princes’ hands became imperial propaganda—proof of Britain’s stern but magnanimous rule.

The Wellesley Brothers and the Final Conquest of Mysore

By 1797, the Wellesley brothers—Richard, Henry, and Arthur—arrived in India with ambitions far beyond Cornwallis’ cautious governance. Richard, as Governor-General, oversaw an army of 192,000 men, rivaling many European powers. Under his leadership, the East India Company (now effectively the British government) asserted unchallenged dominance. Mysore was dismantled; the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam, blind and powerless, became a British pensioner; and regional rulers like the Nizam of Hyderabad submitted to British oversight.

In 1799, Arthur Wellesley led a decisive campaign against Tipu. The Sultan died defending Seringapatam’s Water Gate, and his treasures—golden crowns, mechanical tigers, and jeweled weapons—were shipped to England as trophies. The real prize, however, was Mysore’s vast wealth, which funded further British expansion. Richard Wellesley, styling himself as a Roman emperor, declared that Britain’s empire in Asia rested on “the happiness and prosperity of the Indian people.”

Cultural Imperialism and the Birth of British India

Wellesley’s vision extended beyond conquest. In 1800, he founded Fort William College to train British administrators in Indian languages, laws, and customs. Though the college later closed, its ethos endured: Britain was reframed not as India’s conqueror but as its savior, bringing order to a fractured subcontinent. This narrative ignored the brutal realities of colonial extraction—opium trade, land revenue systems, and economic subjugation—that enriched Britain at India’s expense.

Legacy: From Garden Kingdom to Imperial Jewel

The fall of Mysore marked a turning point. No longer a trading enterprise, the East India Company became a territorial power, laying the groundwork for the British Raj. The Wellesleys’ triumphs—celebrated in portraits and propaganda—masked the contradictions of an empire founded on both enlightenment ideals and ruthless exploitation.

By the 19th century, India’s wealth fueled Britain’s Industrial Revolution, its cotton feeding Lancashire mills while its opium addicted China. The “garden kingdom” of Mysore was gone, but its conquest had sown the seeds of a global empire—one built on trade, tyranny, and the enduring myth of British benevolence.