A History of the Mahrattas v2.c57.35

v2.c57.35

Hostilities were no sooner commenced, than the ferocious and vindictive character of Bajee Rao’s previous orders became apparent from the proceedings in every direction; probably before he had time to stop them. The Residency was plundered and burnt, and of the Resident’s library and private apartment, not one stone was left upon another; the families and followers of the troops, who fell into the hands of the Mahrattas, were robbed, beaten, and frequently mutilated; the gardens were destroyed, the trees were torn from the roots, and the graves were dug up. An engineer officer, on survey, was attacked and killed; two brothers, of the name of Vaughan, one of them a Captain in the Madras army, were taken while travelling between Bombay and Poona, near the village of Tullygaom, and though they made no resistance, were most barbarously hanged under the superintendence of a Bramin named Babjee Punt Gokla.² These atrocities, excepting the plunder of the adherents and servants of the British Government, were not perpetrated under Bappoo Gokla’s sanction; but as he had been entrusted with the entire powers of the state, Mr. Elphinstone took the first opportunity of intimating to him, that any individual, however exalted his rank, who might order the death of a British prisoner, should answer for it in his own person.