The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s8.255

c7.s8.255

It cannot be doubted that in the twenty-seven years which elapsed between the death of Shiváji and that of Aurangzeb the condition of the Konkan had greatly altered for the worse. Both the military and the revenue system of Shiváji fell much into decay under Sambháji, who, Kháfi Khán says, so oppressed the rayats that they fled from his country to that of the Feringis.² Although Rájárám tried to return to the old ways yet the success of the Sidi and A'ngria and the generally unsettled state of the country prevented any great measure of reform. The frequent ravaging expeditions of the Moghals and the Sidi in the Northern Konkan, with the fewer but more regular campaigns in the south, must have caused great misery. The Portuguese were utterly unable to protect their possessions. The districts owned by the Sidi were less exposed to external aggression than any other part, yet his was a government that never paid much attention to the wants or the miseries of its native subjects, and his system of revenue exactions was, if more certain, scarcely less oppressive than that of Kalusha. The divisions of authority in the Málvan district already mentioned must have kept the people in a perpetual fever of civil war. Trade of course could not have flourished under these circumstances, and almost the only mention of it that can be found at this time is that on exports from Bombay duties of five per cent were levied by the East India Company, eight per cent by the Portuguese at Thána, and arbitrary exactions by the Moghals at Kalyán.³