A History of the Mahrattas v2.c42.27

v2.c42.27

¹ [Wilks (Historical Sketches of the South of India, &c.) gives full details of the sufferings of Lord Cornwallis’s troops. V. A. Smith (O.H.I., p. 560) remarks that if the Marāthās with their supplies had only arrived a few days earlier, the war might have been ended triumphantly. ‘Lord Cornwallis bought the further aid or neutrality of the mercenary Marāthās with funds provided by seizing the Company’s silver on its way to China. In those days modern financial facilities did not exist. There was no paper money, no funded debt, and no machinery of extensive credit. Each campaign had to be financed by chests full of coin, and the amazingly cumbrous arrangements for transport and supply were of a mediaeval character.’]