New History of the Marathas v2.c24.65

v2.c24.65

Kanhoji Angre and Balaji had long been known to each other as friendly neighbours inhabiting the same coastal region of the west. Through common friends and secret agents Balaji appealed to Kanhoji's conscience, how both their personal and national interests would be highly promoted by their acting jointly under Shahu's suzerainty and how they would be ruined by adhesion to the Kolhapur party then like a broken reed. He urged that the Maratha raj was a sacred legacy left behind by the Great Shivaji, which it was their duty at the present crisis to preserve through common co-operation and harmonious working of the two forces, the army and the navy: that Shahu was a generous and large-hearted ruler incapable of harming even an adversary; that Kanhoji himself was surrounded by enemies, like the Siddis, the British and the Portuguese, against whom he could not hold his position long single-handed, unless he had at his back the full support of the central Government. Reasons both of policy and interest, therefore, required that Kanhoji should not alienate Shahu’s sympathies, and at the same time Balaji promised to stand guarantee as the Peshwa to see that all promises made to Angre would be solemnly carried out.