A History of the Mahrattas v1.c24.92

v1.c24.92

The Peishwa was at a loss what to do, and during three months spent at Satara before the Raja’s death, he was alternately swayed by ambition and apprehension: he sometimes thought of at once asserting his supremacy, by setting aside the Raja entirely,¹ but on the whole he considered it most expedient to support the assertion of Tara Bye; yet, although he was scrupulous in every outward form of respect towards the Prince whom he acknowledged, he was not afterwards desirous of suppressing a current report at Poona, already alluded to, of the whole being fictitious. When the power of the Peishwa was complete, and the end answered, such a pageant as the Raja was in some respects inconvenient to the usurper, and to countenance a belief of the imposture was the first step to his being wholly set aside, but the voice of the country was too strong, and an heir of the house of Sivajee would have been joined by thousands in the tract where that chieftain first established himself.