A History of the Mahrattas v2.c36.1

v2.c36.1

A.D. 1777.—ON the 10th of October, 1777, Mr. Hornby, in a minute of Council, entered on a review of the Mahratta affairs, and remarks, ‘that they were fast verging to a period which must compel the English nation either to take some active and decisive part in them, or relinquish for ever all hopes of bettering their own situation on the West of India.’ He laments the control by which the Bombay Presidency was fettered, remarks the secret divisions among the Mahratta ministers, the views of Sindia and Holkar to their own aggrandizement, the successes of Hyder, the defection of the Mahratta chiefs, and the demise of Gunga Bye, the young Peishwa’s mother, who had been the cause of her own death.¹