Shivaji and His Times c16.s2.40

c16.s2.40

Early in 1677 the patience of the English seemed to have been exhausted. Surat wrote to Bombay on 26th January 1677, "If Shivaji still continues to baffle you, we desire you to seize and make prize of some of his vessels belonging to Dabhol, Chaul or Kalian or any other of his ports, letting the men have their liberty and taking care that none of the goods be embezzled or made away, for this will be the only way to make him rightly understand himself." (F. R. Surat, 89.) The threat, however, was not carried out. The people of Bombay were entirely dependent on Shivaji's territory on the mainland for their fuel, timber, fresh provisions, and cattle, and he could also have effectually stopped the passage of their export merchandise across the Konkan and Kanara coast-strip, the whole of which was now in his hands. He, on his part, depended on Bombay for salt and European manufactures.*