A History of the Mahrattas v2.c55.10

v2.c55.10

One of the first acts of Ballajee, instigated by the Gosaeen, has left a stain on his memory which cannot be effaced. Finding it impracticable to reduce the Bheels by force, he inveigled a whole tribe of them, with their wives and families, to an interview at Kopergaom,¹ on pretence of affording them a settlement, when they were treacherously seized and most barbarously precipitated into wells, where the whole perished. This inhuman action had the effect in some degree of checking the Bheels about Chandore and the southern part of Buglana; but to the northward, and along the Sautpoora mountains, it drove them to desperation, and they continued to molest the country.