A History of the Mahrattas v1.c15.86

v1.c15.86

Sivajee, who had long struck coins and styled himself Raja and Maha Raja, was at this time consulting many learned Bramins on the propriety of declaring his independence, assuming ensigns of royalty, and establishing an era from the day of his ascending the throne. A celebrated Shastree of Benares, named Gaga Bhutt, who arrived at Raigurh, and of whose coming Sivajee pretended to have an intimation from Bhowanee, was appointed to conduct the inauguration. After many solemn rites and every observance of the Shasters which could make the ceremony reverenced by Hindoos, Sivajee, at a propitious moment, was enthroned at Raigurh on the 6th June.³ About a fortnight after, on the death of his mother, Jeejee Bye, Sivajee was a second time placed on the throne, but the date of the abishik or era commences from the 13th day of the moon’s increase in Jesht or June, according to the previous installation. The first ceremony was partly witnessed by Mr. Henry Oxenden, who had been sent from Bombay on a mission to Sivajee, for the purpose of concluding the long-pending treaty. The preliminary articles were signed by a native agent on the 6th April. The treaty consisted of twenty articles, the substance of which the Mahrattas have preserved under four heads:—First, indemnification for the losses at Rajapoor, with permission to establish factories at Rajapoor, Dabul, Choule, and Kallian; and to trade all over Sivajee’s territory, buying and selling at their own prices without being liable to the imposition of fixed rates. Second, they were only to pay an import duty of 2½ per cent. ad valorem. Third, coins were to pass reciprocally; and fourth, wrecks were to be restored. The mode of settling the indemnification, which was dictated by Sivajee, shows his idea of the principles of trade; but it is particularly characteristic of a Mahratta agreement, not only in its intricacy, but in the evasion of any direct money payment. Sivajee was to allow the English 10,000 pagodas: that is, the English agreed to purchase 5,000 pagodas worth of goods from Sivajee for three years, they paying him half the value, so that they would then recover 7,500 pagodas; and for the balance of 2,500 pagodas, he granted to the factory, when it should be re-established at Rajapoor, an exemption from customs until it amounted to an equivalent. It was with some difficulty that Sivajee was brought to consent to those articles