A History of the Mahrattas v2.c55.5

v2.c55.5

Sewdasheo Mankesir was a Deshist Bramin, one of the family of the Deshpandya of the village of Taimboornee, and at one time gained a livelihood by reciting Kuthas¹ in Poona, before he entered the service of Pingley; but notwithstanding his humble origin, he was dignified in his manner, polite and affable in conversation, and, as a statesman, possessed of considerable ability. His avowed enmity to the alliance with the English was Bajee Rao’s chief motive for selecting him as minister for their affairs; and during several months the Peishwa was at pains to show that circumstances alone had forced him to sign the articles of the treaty; but the success of the war, the protection which the presence of the British troops afforded, and the power, the security, and the comforts, to which he had hitherto been a stranger, and which he soon experienced in the connexion, not only reconciled him to it, but induced him to declare, and probably for a time with sincerity, that he considered the alliance as the most fortunate of events. The forts hitherto in possession of Amrut Rao or Nana Furnuwees were reduced and given up to the Peishwa; his country, which for a time after his re-establishment was overrun by freebooters and exhausted from the effects of war and famine, even under the disadvantage of a pernicious revenue system, gradually recovered itself in most places; and his authority, at first scarcely acknowledged beyond the environs of Poona, soon became respected throughout his dominions.