History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c41.321

v2.c41.321

Warren Hastings as Governor-General informed the Council that the Rājā of Mayurbhañja had lately seized by an armed force the Company’s territory of the *parganah* of Beloorichor in Medinipur, in consequence of which the Committee of Revenue had been directed to issue a public summons requiring the Rājā to appear personally as a tenant of the Company in the district of Medinipur to answer for his conduct. (Letter dated 1st September, 1781). This event was reported to the Directors of the East India Company in a dispatch dated 22nd December, 1781, in which we learn that letters from the *Faujdār* of Balasore and the Rājā of Mayurbhañja indicate that no further disturbance will take place. Another despatch to the Directors dated 27th November contains the information that Rājā Dāmodar Bhañja submitted his claims for enquiry but both the Board of Revenue and the Governor-General in Council rejected his application. The despatch states that the Council at Calcutta had written to “the Rājah of Berar,” *i. e.*, Sābājī Bhonsle, for an interchange of territory, as at this time the chief of Mayurbhañja was a feudatory of the Maratha government and a zamindar under the English East India Company. “He thence enjoys a facility of which he has often availed himself to evade the just demands of either power by alternately taking shelter under the other.” There is a copy of a *parwanah* dated 9th Rabia’-ul-Ākhir 1200 A. H. (1785-86)