He  was  merchant  and  money-lender  by  turns ;  and  huge  ware-
houses, which  still  exist  in  the  Fort  of  Seringapatam,  long  open
rooms  in  the  palace,  capable  of  containing  vast  quantities  of
merchandise,  were  filled  with  every  description  of  goods,  which
in  time  he  forgot  entirely,  and  so  they  remained  till  his  death.
By  his  system  of  banking,  and  of  regulating,  as  he  imagined,  in
his  own  person  the  exchanges  of  his  dominions,  he  put  a  stop  to
the  operations  of  the  bankers  of  his  capital,  by  whose  assistance
alone  he  was  able  to  administer  his  affairs ;  nor  would  they
resume  their  business  until  he  agreed  to  abandon  this  one  of  the
thousand  schemes  which  were  on  foot  for  fame  and  aggrandise-
ment.
New  and  perplexing  laws  were  for  ever  being  coined  in  the
fertile  mint  of  his  own  brain ;  new  interpretations  of  the  Koran,
which  he  pretended  to  receive  by  inspiration,  when  in  reality  he
understood  not  a  word  of  its  language,  and  very  indifferently
Persian,  in  which  the  commentaries  upon  it  were  written.  The
penal  enactments  against  the  lower  classes  of  his  Hindoo  sub-
jects were  horrible ;  the  meanest  offences,  the  wearing  of  any
scrap  of  green,  the  sacred  colour  of  Mahomed,  about  their  per-
sons, or  the  transgression  of  any  one  of  his  arbitrary  rules,  was
punished  with  death,  or  obscene  mutilations,  to  which  death
would  have  been  far  preferable.  These  were  often  done  in  his
own  presence;  and  with  Jaffar  Sahib,  Madar  (who  had  once
been  his  servant,  but  who  had  risen  in  rank),  and  many  others,
he  was  at  no  loss  for  instruments  to  carry  them  into  execution.
