A History of the Mahrattas v2.c37.81

v2.c37.81

It appeared to General Goddard that an advanced (Jan. 18.) movement, so as to threaten Poona, was more likely to facilitate the negotiations of the Governor-General with the Peishwa than wasting time in attempting to reduce hill-forts, the greater part of which seemed totally impregnable. Although General Goddard, by order from the Court of Directors, was now Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army, he was still entrusted with his former powers from Bengal, and at liberty in a great degree to follow his own plans. The orders from Bengal, although they desired that the war should be vigorously prosecuted in the event of receiving no intimation from the Peishwa, were yet of a nature to unsettle any steady plan of the authorities acting in subordinate co-operation ; and from Madras, where all their evils were attributed, with some justice, ‘to Rugoba Dada and the Mahratta war,’ every dispatch to Bombay, teeming with regrets on this subject, pressed the necessity of peace with the Mahrattas and an attack on Hyder’s possessions on the Malabar coast.