The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s10.15

c7.s10.15

Before entering on the general settlement of the country it was necessary to define the rights of those Marátha states which under the supremacy of the Peshwa had held a great part of the coast of the Southern Konkan. Málvan, the sea-port of the Kolhápur territories, had been ceded since 1812, so that the arrangements now made with that state did not affect the Konkan. But to gain the forts of Nivti and Ráiri in consequence of the injuries committed on the inhabitants of our villages by the Sávantvádi state, a force under Sir William Grant Keir, consisting of a wing of the 89th Regiment, 2½ battalions of Native infantry, and three troops of Native cavalry and artillery, entered the Konkan in January 1819. The heavy stores and ordnance were sent by sea. Nivti which had a garrison of 300 men, was invested and surrendered on February 4 without resistance, and the force proceeded by sea to Ráiri, the defences of which were found to be formidable. On the thirteenth at daybreak fire was opened on the fort by four battery guns and four eight-inch mortars, which in an hour dismantled the whole of the guns in the outworks, and then directed their fire against the general defences till 3 P.M., when the storming party of 330 men of the 89th Regiment in two columns assaulted the fort, and gained the outworks with a loss of eight killed and twenty-seven wounded, the latter including two officers. The enemy retained possession of the inner works that night, but most of them escaped before morning, and the remainder then surrendered.¹ A treaty was concluded by which the whole of the coast villages from Málvan to the Portuguese frontier were ceded and about twenty inland villages composing the districts of Pát and Ajgaum. These last however were restored in the following year and the coast villages alone retained.²