FORE:The news of the Treaty of Sch?nbrunn was a death-blow to the hopes and exertions of the Tyrolese. At this moment they had driven the French out of their mountains, and the beautiful Tyrol was free from end to end. Francis II. had been weak enough to give this brave country over again to Bavaria, at the command of Napoleon, and sent the patriotic Tyrolese word to lay down their arms. To understand the chagrin of the people we must recollect the strong attachment of the Tyrolese to the house of Austria and their brilliant actions during this war. It was decided to ignore the message and raise the Tyrol. On the 9th of April the concerted signal was given by planks, bearing little red flags, floating down the Inn, and by sawdust thrown on the lesser streams. On the 10th the whole country was in arms. The Bavarians, under Colonel Wrede, proceeded to blow up the bridges in the Pusterthal, to prevent the approach of the Austrians; but his sappers, sent for the purpose, found themselves picked off by invisible foes, and took to flight. Under Andrew Hofer, an innkeeper of the valley of Passeyr, the Tyrolese defeated the Bavarians in engagement after engagement. After the battle of Aspern, Francis II. sent word that his faithful Tyrolese should be united to Austria for ever, and that he would never conclude a peace in which they were not indissolubly united to his monarchy. But Wagram followed, Francis forgot his promise, and the Tyrol, as we have seen, was again handed over to the French, to clear it for the Bavarians. Lefebvre marched into it with forty thousand men, and an army of Saxons, who had to bear the brunt of the fighting. Hofer and his comrades, Spechbacher, Joachim Haspinger, and Schenk, the host of the "Krug" or "Jug," again roused the country, and destroyed or drove back the Saxons; and when Lefebvre himself appeared near Botzen with all his concentrated forces, they compelled him also to retire from the Tyrol with terrible loss. The French and Saxons were pursued to Salzburg, many prisoners being taken by the way. Hofer was then appointed governor of the Tyrol. He received his credentials at Innsbruck from an emissary of the Archduke, his friends Spechbacher, Mayer, and Haspinger being present on the occasion, and also the priest Douay by whom the patriot was subsequently betrayed.During this periodfrom 1769 to 1772Warren Hastings had been second in the Council[322] at Madras; but in the latter year he was promoted to the head of the Council in Bengal. During this period, too, the British had been brought into hostilities with the Rajah of Tanjore. The history of these proceedings is amongst the very blackest of the innumerable black proceedings of the East India Company. The Rajah of Tanjore was in alliance with the Company. In 1762 they had guaranteed to him the security of his throne; but now their great ally, Mohammed Ali, the Nabob of the Carnatic, called to the English for help against the Rajah. The conduct of honourable men would have been to offer themselves as mediators, and so settle the business; but not by such means was the whole of India to be won from the native princes. The Rajah of the Carnatic offered to purchase the territory of Tanjore from the British for a large sum. The latter, however, had guaranteed the defence of these territories to the Rajah of Tanjore by express treaty. No matter, they closed the bargain with the Rajah of the Carnatic; they agreed to seize Tanjore, and make it over to Mohammed Ali. An army assembled at Trichinopoly on the 12th of September, 1771, invaded Tanjore, seized the Rajah and his family, and invested the whole of Tanjore in the name of the Nabob of the Carnatic.
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