A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s2.1

v1.c5.s2.1

Both as a monument of careful research and as an authoritative account of the political rise and decline of the Marāthā power in India, Grant Duff's *History of the Mahrattas* still commands unqualified praise. Details of the history of the ‘imperial banditti’ will be found in the works of Orme, Mill, Elphinstone, Wilks and others, or in the pages of Scott Waring, Blacker, Broughton, Thorn and Tone, to say nothing of the dispatches of Lord Wellesley.¹ But for a comprehensive survey of Marāthā political history and achievements, none of these writers were so favourably circumstanced as Captain Grant Duff, who served as a military and civil officer of the East India Company in the very heart of the Marāthā country, obtained access in his official capacity to important State documents and the correspondence of the Pēshwās, received charge of the Sātāra State records and other papers in the possession of the Rājā of Sātāra, the existence of which was unknown to the Pēshwā, and was also granted free access to the Company’s records at Bombay and Surat, as well as to those of the Portuguese Government at Goa. Moreover, Grant Duff was enabled to extract a mass of information from Marāthī manuscripts, from Persian and other documents which were either presented to, or purchased by, him, and from family and temple archives, of the existence of which his personal acquaintance with Marāthā chieftains and people enabled him to obtain direct information.¹