While Company rule was rapidly spreading across Northern India, the military commander Hyder Ali assumed rule of the Kingdom of Mysore in 1761, working with French allies and annexing the regions of Bidnur, Canara, Sera, Malabar and Sunda. Alarmed by this, the Company entered into an 18-month conflict with the Mysore Kingdom, culminating in near-occupation of British Madras by Hyder Ali and a British surrender.

Colonel William Baillie surrenders to Hyder Ali

Source: Casell’s Illustrated History of England (1890), via Wikimedia Commons