The Military Committee and the United Irishmen, 1798-1803

This chapter describes monolithic reception of Islam on the British Romantic period stage, that of Indian Islam typified by Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib’s fight against the British. The nightmare scenario for the British in the 1790s was the possibility of an effective military alliance between Tippoo and the French. Tippoo’s tactics were to keep the British simultaneously fearful and appeased. In H. M. Milner’s narrative device, the Wellington figure’s British bravery is balanced by that of Tippoo’s Moghul courage and filial devotion. There is every reason to think that Milner’s Tippoo Saib was considered a potentially dangerous re-evaluation of the Moghul leader. William Barrymore’s El Hyder, Milner’s Tippoo Saib and, not least, John Howard Payne’s Fall of Algiers, all testify to a skeptical reaction to the East India Company’s role in expanding its commercial empire. Barrymore’s two act drama presents Hyder Ali as an Indian patriotic hero, securing his kingdom against internal treachery.