A History of the Mahrattas v1.c22.73

v1.c22.73

² I do not know whether it was Mr. John Horne, or Mr. Stephen Law. Mr. Law succeeded Mr. Horne some time during the first part of the year 1739. Mr. Law, in a letter to the Court of Directors, 4th September, 1739, is anxious to exculpate the government, and declares the complaints of the Portuguese gross misrepresentations, which so far exonerates the home authorities from suspicion of conniving at such acts of their servants; but what reason could the Mahrattas have for misrepresentation? [Stephen Law succeeded John Horne as President of the Bombay Council on April 7, 1739. The charge against the Bombay Government of assisting the Marāthās is contained in a letter from John Pereira Pinto, Commandant of Bassein, to the Bombay Council, before whom it was laid for information by the President, John Horne, on January 1, 1739. Apparently, therefore, it was Horne, and not Law, who was in office at the time the alleged assistance was given. The Bombay Council recorded that the letter from the Portuguese Commandant was ‘couched in very opprobrious and disrespectful language, which is ordered to be entered after this consultation for the notice of our honourable masters.’ (Forrest’s Selections (Marāthā Series), i. 24, 26.) The Portuguese attempt to recover Thāna took place towards the close of 1738, i.e. during the governorship of Horne which lasted from September 22, 1734 to April 7, 1739. (B.G., xiv.; B.C.G., ii.)]