A History of the Mahrattas v2.c42.12

v2.c42.12

The Mahratta and Moghul armies had been declared ready to take the field before the march of General Medows in May; but Nizam Ally, as we have seen, did not finally sign the treaty till July, and Pureshram Bhow Putwurdhun, the officer appointed to command the Mahratta army, did not receive his commission to raise and equip his troops until 5th May; on which day he had his audience of leave from the Peishwa and immediately set out for his own Jagheer at Tasgaom,³ to make the necessary arrangements. The two battalions with their artillery,⁴ which by the treaty the English had engaged to furnish, sailed from Bombay about the 20th May, disembarked on the 29th at Sungumeshwur (the same place where Sumbhajee was made prisoner by the Moghuls upwards of a century before), and ascended the Ambah Ghaut by the 10th June, although the natural difficulties of that stupendous pass were much increased by the setting-in of the monsoon. On the 18th the detachment arrived at Koompta, a village within a few miles of Tasgaom, when the commander, Captain Little, found that not above two thousand horse had as yet assembled. Two Carcoons had been sent to meet and accompany the British detachment on its march from the coast, and the many artificial delays and difficulties raised by these Bramin conductors, to prolong the march and conceal their want of preparation, were now explained. The dilatoriness of the Mahrattas appeared ambiguous to the English, especially as it was found that Tippoo’s wukeels were still at Poona, where they were allowed to remain, as subsequently avowed by that court, in the vain hope that Tippoo would endeavour to purchase their neutrality; for, although the Mahrattas had really no intention of breaking their engagements with the English, this mode of obtaining a supply of money from a tributary who owed so much was by them considered wholly justifiable. On the 5th of August, however, the wukeels were finally dismissed, but Pureshram Bhow did not cross the Kistna until the 11th; at which time, in addition to the British detachment, he had only five thousand horse and about one-third of that number of infantry. In the course of a few days he was joined by a body of horse belonging to the Pritee Needhee; and a separate body of one thousand horse, whom it was at first proposed to attach exclusively to the British detachment, also joined under the partisan officer named Dhondoo Punt Gokla, originally an agent superintending a part of the marine establishment at Viziadroog. His horse were not continued with the detachment as proposed; but the intention of thus employing them was the commencement of a connexion between Gokla’s family and the English; by whose influence Bappoo Gokla, the nephew of Dhondoo Punt, was raised to high rank at the Peishwa’s court, where we shall ultimately see him, by no uncommon revolution, an active enemy of the British government.