Early Years
Maruthanayagam Pillai (or Mathuranayagam Pillai) alias Yusuf Khan was born circa 1725 in the village of Panaiyur, in Rammnad 'country' in a Hindu farming family of the Vellalar caste.Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, (who was in the service of Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, the Nawab of Arcot, for three years), mentions in his 'Genuine Memoirs of Asiaticus",(2nd Ed 1785, page 160) that Yusuf Khan was of royal extraction and high descent. The "Scots Magazine" (for the year 1765,page 264) shows a letter written by a Gentleman in the East Indies to a friend in Scotland, dated Camp before Palamcottah, 22 October 1764, wherein Yusuf Khan is said to be 'descended from the ancient seed of that nation'
Being too restless in his youth, he left his native village, and converted to Islam. To make a living, he served as a domestic hand at the residence of the French Governor Monsr Jacques Law in Pondicherry. It was here he befriended another French, Marchand (a subordinate of Jacques Law), who later became captain of the French force under Yusuf Khan in Madurai. Whether Yusuf Khan was dismissed from this job or left on his own is unclear now. He left Pondicherry, for Tanjore and joined the Tanjorean army as a sepoy (foot soldier).
Read more about this topic: Muhammed Yusuf Khan
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