In 1783, on the contrary, since she had allied with the wrong side during the Company’s war against Tipu Sultan, her fort in Cannanore in Kerala was invaded, and her palace plundered. Plunder, that is, in addition to the 2.6 lakh she was compelled to pay as indemnity, of which a lakh, she discovered, was off the books to satisfy the personal (and secret) avarice of certain officers. A treaty was signed with both sides promising, somewhat ambitiously, to uphold it ‘as long as the sun and moon shall last’. Six years later, these exalted celestial bodies were brushed aside abruptly as the two
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