fter the crushed hopes of 1745, many Scots enlisted for service in European campaigns. Two regiments, Seaforth's Highlanders, and the 1st Bn 73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot, were raised specifically for the Mysore Wars. Scots also travelled to India hoping to 'shake the Pagoda tree' (pagoda = Indian gold coin) and return as a rich nabob to their native land. Portraits, manuscripts, drawings and artefacts are evidence of the Scots' interest in India, and many of the official accounts of the Mysore Wars were published by Scots. Soldiers made careful analyses of terrain to inform military strategy; professional artists documented events, and antiquarians and scholars recorded and collected Indian material.

Some of Britain's finest military men - many of them Scots - were employed in safeguarding the interests of King and Company (the East India Company) in India. Zoffany, Devis, Home and Hickey were among the professional artists who sought their patronage. The Mysore Wars offered exciting and lucrative new subjects for British artists, and even artists who had never visited India responded to the popular appeal of the Tiger of Mysore. The surrender of the hostage princes in 1792, and the closing scenes of the Fourth Mysore War in 1799 were particularly popular subjects. European artists also found employment at the glittering courts of India, like the Scotsmen James Wales, who painted the Mahratta Peshwa (ruler) at Poona, and George Willison, who painted Nizam Mohammad Ali of the Carnatic.

In Britain, Ker Porter's vast panorama of the Storming of Seringapatam was touring the country within months of the event, while printmakers in London, Paris, and Augsburg supplied graphic images of the Mysore campaigns.

Sir David Wilkie and Sir David Baird
As a young captain, David Baird had been imprisoned at Seringapatam after the Battle of Pollilur, but had survived this ordeal, and continued his military career. As Major-General in 1799, he led the final attack on Seringapatam. He left India to serve in the Egyptian Campaign (1801) and commanded at Corunna before returning home to marriage and the estate of Ferntower in Perthshire He died in 1829. To commemorate his achievements, his widow erected an obelisk in Perthshire, commissioned Theodore Hook's biography and commissioned Sir David Wilkie's great portrait , 'General Sir David Baird Discovering the Body of Sultan Tippoo Sahib after Having Captured Seringapatam on the 4th May 1799.'.

Baird had felt that his achievement at Seringapatam had been overshadowed by the success of his fellow commander, Arthur Wellesley, but Lady Baird insisted that Wellesley, now The Duke of Wellington, should be included in the painting. Wilkie made numerous preparatory sketches, using Raeburn's portrait and Macdonald's bust for likenesses of Baird, and Indian arms in the Royal Collection for Tipu weapons. He constructed tableaux to reproduce lighting effects and attempted - unsuccessfully - to persuade Indians working at India House to sit as models.

In 1839, forty years after the event it commemorated, Wilkie's great canvas was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London. It has remained one of the icons of the Mysore Wars