Shivaji and His Times c16.s1: §2. English factors of Rajapur prisoners of Shivaji, 1661-1663
Shivaji and His Times c16.s1
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§2. English factors of Rajapur prisoners of Shivaji, 1661-1663
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The second Maratha attack on the English took place at the beginning of March next, and here again the Englishmen were clearly in the wrong, though the Company's official attitude was correct and neutral.
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In 1660, while Siddi Jauhar, acting on behalf of the Bijapur Government, was investing Shivaji in Panhala fort, the English factors of Rajapur supplied him with some grenades "which (the vendors promised) undoubtedly will be the chiefest disturbers of the besieged." Some Englishmen of Rajapur were also bribed to go to the Bijapuri camp outside Panhala and help in the bombardment of the fort, by "tossing balls with a flag that was known to be the English's." (Ch. 4.)
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Shivaji punished this act of hostility about 3rd March 1661, when he surprised Rajapur, plundered the English factory, and carried off four of the factors,—Henry Revington, Richard Taylor, Randolph Taylor, and Philip Gyffard,—as prisoners.
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A graphic account of this second sack of Rajapur is given by the Dutch Chief at Vingurla: "Shivaji sent 1,000 horse and about 3,000 foot soldiers to take possession of Rajapur. This force, on reaching the town, invited the principal inhabitants to come out and escort it in, according to custom, promising to do no harm. These simple men, suspecting no evil, went to the place of meeting, accompanied by the English President Revington, with two or three other Englishmen, who thought it well to pay this mark of respect. They were all immediately seized and their property confiscated, after tortures had been inflicted. Revington and those who accompanied him were placed in one of Shivaji's fortresses......The factory was entirely stripped, even the floor being dug up in search of hidden treasure. The robbers also plundered many foreign merchants, who yearly bring goods to Rajapur from Persia and Muskat."*
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While the English prisoners were still at Rajapur, the Brahman agent of Shivaji told them that his master would give them a fine salt port (*mit bandar*) on the coast, if they helped him in taking Danda-Rajpuri; but they declined to "discourse about it" unless he set them free. Then Shivaji laid a ransom on the captives, and sent them to Waisati fort. Many other persons—Hindu merchants (*banians*), Indian Muslims, Persians and Arabs—were kept there in his prison in a miserable plight and beaten to extort ransom.
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∗ *Batavia Dagh-Register*, 1661, p. 215, quoted in Foster, xi. 4-5. The date given is "about the middle of March" [New style], which was equivalent to "about the 5th of March" in the Old style followed in this book. The English report has been lost. The Dutch statement, that "the Englishmen who had remained behind in Rajapur were likewise imprisoned and one died under torture," was based on false rumour, as only three factors besides Revington were carried off into captivity, and the factor who died at Rajapur, evidently Richard Napier, had been reported on the 16th February before "as "dangerously ill and not expected to live" (F. R., Rajapur to Company.)
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The Englishmen steadily refused to pay any ransom and tried to secure their liberty by feigned negotiations for helping the Marathas with English ships in capturing Danda-Rajpuri, but taking care to impose such terms as always left the English "a hole to creep out of their obligation" after recovering liberty. Then they tried the effect of threat by saying that if they were not released their countrymen at Surat would grant Aurangzib's desire by transporting a Mughal army into the Deccan [i.e., the Konkan district] by sea. (Orme MSS., Vol. 155, pp. 1-21, letter from the English prisoners at Songarh, 10th June 1661.)
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Raoji Pandit had been sent by Shivaji to take charge of all the prisoners in Songarh and "do with them as he thought fit." The four Englishmen were well-treated. But their captivity was prolonged past endurance. To the demand for ransom they replied that they could pay nothing, having lost their all in the sack of Rajapur. Shivaji's absence on a projected expedition for recovering Kalian (June, 1661) also delayed the progress of the negotiations about an alliance with the English against the Siddis. The "disconsolate prisoners in Raigarh," after a year's confinement, lost their temper and wrote in disrespectful and abusive terms to the President and Council at Surat, charging the latter with making no exertion for their release. The reply of the Surat Council (on 10th March, 1662) was a stern but well-merited rebuke: "How you came in prison you know very well. 'Twas not for defending the Company's goods, 'twas for going to the siege of Panhala and tossing balls with a flag that was known to be the English's. None but what [is] rehearsed is the cause of your imprisonment.*
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It seems that the four Englishmen made an attempt to escape from Songarh, but were caught and sent off to Raigarh to be kept in "closer confinement." Towards the middle of 1662, when their captivity had lasted a year and a half, the Council at Surat, finding all appeals to Shivaji and his suzerain fruitless, commissioned some of the English ships to make reprisals by capturing on the high seas Deccani vessels, whether belonging to the king of Bijapur or Shivaji or any merchant of the country, especially the one bringing the Dowager Queen Bari Sahiba back from Mecca. They hoped that such a success would compel the Bijapur Government to put pressure on Shivaji to release the Englishmen. But no good prize offered itself to the English privateers. The Surat Council also influenced the Mughal governor of Surat to write to Shaista Khan, who was then reported to be pressing Shivaji hard (about November 1662), to importune him to move for their release.†
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† Surat to R. Taylor, 17 May, 1662, 1662, F. R. Surat, Vol. 85; Surat Consult., 21 July, F. R. Surat, Vol. 2; also under 21st July, 19th August and 14th November in Vol. 85.
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On 3rd February, 1663, the Council commissioned the captain of H. M. S. Convertite to capture two vessels of considerable burden which Shivaji was fitting out at Jaitapur for Mocha and loading with "such goods as were driven by storms upon his coast, which was of considerable value." (F. R. Surat, Vol. 2.) But such a step became unnecessary, as Raoji Pandit, the Maratha governor of Rajapur, sent for the four captives from Raigarh and set them free (about 5th February) with a solemn assurance from Shivaji that the English would enjoy his protection in future. The Council at Surat say that they "had desisted from calling that perfidious rebel Shivaji to an account, because they had not either conveniency of force or time." They were still resolved to avenge the wrong done to their masters' property and the sufferings of their "loving brethren," but sadly realized that "as yet we are altogether uncapable for want of shipping and men necessary for such an enterprise, wherefore patience."*
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∗ *Ibid*, also Surat to the Prisoners in Rairi castle, 10 March, 1662, F. R. Surat, Vol. 85.
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Therefore, instead of resorting to force, they began negotiations with Shivaji for compensation for the loss done to their factory at Rajapur. These were protracted for many years till the hearts of the Englishmen grew sick. Even when Shivaji agreed as to the amount of the damages and admitted his liability for it, the actual payment was repeatedly put off and never fully carried out. With the help of the Factory Records preserved in the India Office, London, we can clearly trace the history of these negotiations through their successive stages,—the alternate hopes and disappointments of the English, their diverse tactics, their series of embassies, and their final conviction, at the close of Shivaji's life, that they would get nothing at all from him. The records of this long-drawn diplomatic intercourse afford striking examples of the perseverance and patience of the English traders, though one is apt to smile when he reads how they held diametrically opposite views of Shivaji's character and feelings at different stages of the negotiations, as they hoped for or despaired of a settlement of their claims. Our psychology is naturally coloured by our emotions.
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∗ F. R. Surat 103, Rajapur to Surat, 6 Feb.; Vol. 2, Surat to R. Taylor, 9 Oct. 1663.
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Shivaji’s encounter with the English during his two raids on Surat (in 1664 and 1670) and the dispute between them in connection with his fortification of the Khanderi island have been dealt with in earlier chapters.