The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.113

v4.c21.113

Bassein was now doomed. The Portuguese appealed for help to the English at Bombay, and it cannot be said that the latter behaved with credit in the matter. They had, indeed, little love for their rivals, and they were anxious to do nothing to offend the Marāthās. They accordingly temporised: to the Portuguese they merely tendered good advice, while to the Marāthās they supplied powder and shot: it was even asserted that the Portuguese commander was killed by a piece aimed by an English gunner. The letters of the Portuguese commandant are full of dignity and pathos. The garrison, he says, is starving, and worn out by constant fighting. There is no money to pay the soldiers. All the church plate has long ago been melted down. "The Marāthās have carried on mines, covered ways and other approaches to the very foundation of the wall, their batteries being very near the town: they throw large stones into the place from mortars." A little moved by this touching appeal, the council sent them two hundred barrels of gunpowder, and four thousand rounds of cannon-shot. Later, with the quixotic gallantry of his nation, the commandant actually offered to pledge to the English some of his best cannon in return for further supplies, "having this consideration, that it is most becoming my nation that it should be known to the world how, for the preservation of their king's city, Bassein was stripped of its artillery, the principal instruments of its defence, whilst they put their trust more in their personal valour, in their constant fidelity and zeal, than on the extraordinary force or hardness of metal". But nothing could save the city. On 13 May, a mine was sprung under one of the principal bastions, and the Marāthā storming parties, led in person by their greatest captains, Malhār Rāo Holkar, Rānoji Sindia, Mānāji Angria and Chimāji Appa himself, swarmed up the walls, only to be driven back in disorder. Eleven times the columns moved to the assault, and eleven times they were repulsed with slaughter; and when the attack was renewed at daylight, it was found that the Portuguese had repaired the breaches. But on the next day another mine was exploded, and the Marāthās established themselves in a position among the ruins, from which they could enfilade the defences. All that day the Portuguese maintained an unequal combat with the courage of despair, and in the evening Chimāji sent an envoy to say that, unless the town surrendered, further mines would be exploded, and the whole population put to the sword. The governor then capitulated, after one of the most heroic defences in history. The severity of the fighting is indicated by the fact that the Marāthā losses were estimated at 5000 out of a total of 22,000. Chimāji chivalrously allowed the garrison to march out with the honours of war, and a safe-conduct to Goa or Damān, while those who preferred to remain were promised complete religious freedom. The English, be it said to their honour, did all in their power to help the refugees.¹