History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c64.s14: § 20. Akbar wants to leave Maharashtra, 1683.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c64.s14
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§ 20. Akbar wants to leave Maharashtra, 1683.
v4.c64.s14.1
There was much talk of a Maratha dash into Northern India through Surat, (in September 1682 and also in 1683 and 1685), with Akbar at its head. But nothing was really done. At last after 18 months of heart-sick waiting, hope deferred and evasion of promises, Akbar saw through Shambhuji’s character and policy and despaired of ever being effectually helped by him. He, therefore, decided to leave Maharashtra.
v4.c64.s14.2
His patience was exhausted, and despairing of securing Maratha help in his plans, he issued from his asylum at Pali (Dec. 1682) with his Rathor contingent, with a view to leaving Shambhuji's territory. For a time he thought of going to the Qutb Shah, but evidently he was headed off from Golkonda by the Mughal forces posted across his path. Then turning to the south, he took up his residence at Banda in Savant-vadi, which lay within the Maratha kingdom. Banda is some twenty-five miles north of Goa and within easy reach (15 miles east) of the great port of Vingurla. From this place Akbar (January 1683) sent an agent (Abdur Rahim Khan) to the Viceroy of Goa, presenting him with his own jewelled dagger and begging his permission to sell some jewels in Goa and his influence with the Portuguese factor at Mangalore (in the kingdom of Kanara) to assist Akbar in chartering a ship there to carry him to Arabia. The Viceroy gave him passports for five ships (3rd Feb.) and also wrote to his agent at Mangalore and to the Queen of Kanara to help the Prince in every possible way.
v4.c64.s14.3
On hearing of these things (through Shaikh Muhammad, the Mughal envoy at Goa), Siddi Yaqut (now Mughal admiral) wrote to the Viceroy not to befriend the rebel son of his Emperor. In March and April the Siddi lay with his fleet in the Rajapur creek, on the watch to intercept Akbar, who was planning to take ship at Goa.
v4.c64.s14.4
Afraid of being captured at sea by the imperial fleet, Akbar gave up the idea of a voyage across the Indian Ocean from Mangalore in a private vessel, and begged the Viceroy to send him to Mecca in a Government frigate. This request the Portuguese authorities naturally declined.
v4.c64.s14.5
So, in September, Akbar removed from Banda to Bicholim, a town in Shambhuji's territory, less than ten miles north of Goa. Hopeless of securing a naval escort from the Portuguese, he tried the Dutch, to whom he paid a visit in this month, but with no better success. [Karwar to Surat, 26 Nov. 1683.]
v4.c64.s14.6
Thus, Akbar was at last thrown on his own resources. He secretly bought a ship at Goa in the name of another man (Muhammad Khan), who obtained a passport for Surat, but took the ship to Rajapur, where Akbar rejected it on seeing that it was too small for a voyage to Arabia. [Viceroy's letter, 13 Oct. 1683.]
v4.c64.s14.7
Akbar then came back to Bicholim.[*] Here he became much disgusted with Shambhuji, who, "after taking away from him a part of his jewels, he let him go on of giving him large sums of money and help with men to march against Aurangzeb." The poor deluded Prince, at the (the 6th Nov.) bought a ship and embarked at Vingurla, wishing to shake the dust of Maharashtra off his feet. But Kavi Kalash himself arrived from Rajapur and with Durgadas visited Akbar on board, pressing him "not to go as it was better to come back to land as his master had agreed to keep his word and wanted to help him to defeat the army of the Emperor, and after the victory he could go with greater safety and with a greater army wherever he wanted, without risking himself in the sea." Under this persuasion he disembarked and remained on land.
v4.c64.s14.8
∗ Ishwardas (88b) describes the place thus: "Bicholi is a large town in which the English, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the French have built high houses looking like small forts, in the courtyards of which they have laid out spacious gardens, . . . with streams of water in the middle. In this town Akbar and Shambhu also had built very large mansions of their own."
v4.c64.s14.9
Siddi Yaqut seized two or three servants of Akbar and a boat of provisions that was intended for him, and began to brag of having all but captured Akbar himself!
v4.c64.s14.10
In the meantime the Portuguese-Maratha war had broken out, the Viceroy's siege of Phonda (22 Oct.—1 Nov.) had failed disastrously, and on the 14th of November Shambhuji seized the island of Santo Estevao, close to Goa. But the Maratha King, on hearing of the approach of a powerful Mughal army under Prince Shah Alam, opened peace negotiations with the Portuguese, making Akbar his mediator. That Prince with Kavi-kalash concluded an agreement (about 20 January 1684) and then retired to Jaitapur (20 Feb.) and Malkapur.
v4.c64.s14.11
Akbar spent a whole year from February 1684 in the Ratnagiri district (at Sakharpen and Malkapur), inviting Kavi-kalash repeatedly to meet him and decide on future plans of action. His letters show that he was heartily sick of acting as an intermediary between Shambhuji and the Portuguese and constantly dreaded a repetition of the futile attempt at settlement made at Bhimgarh in January 1684. Next January (1685) he sent his troops towards Khelna, evidently to join the Marathas in some raid.
v4.c64.s14.12
The remainder of his doings in India will be narrated in a later chapter.