end of 1768, he made overtures for peace on terms which Palk's Council unwisely rejected. Then, turning fiercely on his assailants, whom Smith for a time had ceased to command, he drove them across the frontier and sent a cloud of horsemen to ravage the Karnatic.
Once more Smith pressed him back towards Chengalpat; but the daring freebooter had not yet played his last card. Drawing his opponent southward in slow pursuit, he left his infantry and guns in the hills near Pondicherry, and dashed off with six thousand of his best horsemen towards Madras. Before Smith could overtake him, the game had been won. From his camp on Mount St. Thomas, within sight of Madras itself, Haidar sent the Madras Council a message which declared his readiness to treat for peace. At his request Mr. Du Pré 'who is a wise sirdar and one of the councillors,' came out to his camp for a friendly discussion. On the 3rd April, 1769, Haidar signed a treaty of his own dictating, which left him master of all his former conquests, and bound each party to help the other against all assailants. Want of money and the cowardice of their native allies were the chief excuses pleaded by Palk's Council for this lame, inglorious outcome of a war into which they had plunged so recklessly, with aims so far transcending their limited means.
If Haidar Alí set much store by the promises of his new allies, he was soon to reap a bitter disappointment.
In 1770 a great Maráthá army invaded Mysore, to
