A History of the Mahrattas v1.c29.44

v1.c29.44

The Mahrattas were not unconcerned spectators of the rapid progress of Hyder Ally, and a large army was assembling at Poona to be directed against him. Mahdoo Rao insisted on his right to command this army, whilst his uncle remained at Poona to conduct the government; Sukaram Bappoo joined in supporting the Peishwa’s pretensions on this occasion, till at last Rugonath Rao yielded his consent, but quitted Poona in anger and retired to Anundwelee near Nassuck.³ The discussions prior to this arrangement delayed the advance of the Mahratta army beyond the time which mere preparation required, and Gopaul Rao Putwurdhun, who had crossed the Kistna in advance, was defeated with great loss by Fuzzul Oollah Khan. Early in the month of May, Mahdoo Rao entered the Carnatic with an army of thirty thousand horse, and about the same number of infantry. Fuzzul Oollah Khan, leaving a strong garrison in Dharwar, fell back on Hyder’s army, which had quitted an entrenched camp prepared at Annawutty, and advanced to a strong position; where when joined by Fuzzul Oollah Khan, the whole army under Hyder’s personal command has been estimated at twenty thousand horse and forty thousand foot, of which one half were disciplined infantry. Mahdoo Rao’s superiority in cavalry enabled him to obtain more correct intelligence than his adversary, and assisted by the experience of Sukaram Bappoo, it was determined not to attack Hyder’s united force in the position he had chosen. Detachments were therefore employed in driving out his garrisons from the towns and villages north of the Wurdah. This plan of operations induced Hyder to try a stratagem for bringing on a general engagement, for which purpose he moved out with twenty thousand men, intending to retire and draw the Mahrattas towards his reserve, which remained in its first position under Fuzzul Oollah Khan. Such a shallow artifice proves how little he then knew of his enemy. The Mahrattas, as is their usual practice, showed a few men, small bodies began to skirmish and drew Hyder forward, until their parties, still retiring but gradually thickening, at last presented solid masses of horse, moving round between him and his camp. Hyder was obliged to change his intended feint of retiring into steady dispositions for a retreat to his camp, which was not effected without considerable loss. Next day his army fell back to the entrenched position at Annawutty¹; and Mahdoo Rao, as the rains had set in, fixed his headquarters at Nurrindra,² north of the Wurdah, sending his horse for shelter into all the villages twenty miles round. After the defeat of Hyder, Abdool Muzeed Khan and Moorar Rao Ghorepuray joined the Peishwa, who, as Ramchundur Jadow had rejoined Nizam Ally, formally restored Moorar Rao to his rank of Senaputtee, as the representative of the family of Ghorepuray, a circumstance the more creditable to the Peishwa, as he declared it but an act of justice to the descendant of the gallant Suntajee, so ill-requited in the reign of Raja Ram.