A History of the Mahrattas v2.c33.22

v2.c33.22

In consequence of this disappointment, and the additional obstacles with which they should have to contend in attempting to reduce it by force, the matter was again deliberated on the 9th December, when the President in Council determined at all events that they ought to anticipate the Portuguese. An expedition, consisting of six hundred and twenty Europeans, including artillery, one thousand Sepoys, and two hundred gun Lascars, was accordingly prepared under the command of Brigadier-General Robert Gordon; and although the situation of Tannah was such as to preclude the employment of the larger vessels of the Company's Marine, as the Governor ever acquiring Salsette for the Honourable Company, but the Portuguese would then again have had it in their power to obstruct our trade by being in possession of the principal passes to the inland country, and to lay whatever imposition they pleased upon it, which in former times on every occasion they were so prone to do, which of course would have been of infinite prejudice to the trade, revenue and interests of the Company in these parts, insomuch that we should in great measure have been subject to the caprice of the Portuguese.' (See Danvers, *Report on Portuguese Records*, pp. 108-10; *B.C.G.*, ii. 115 f.)]