The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c10.40

c10.40

Shivaji, as we have already seen, had a very limited supply of artillery for his forts and fleet and he had no field artillery, although he had used cannons against Janjira and Phonda. The Marathas long suffered from this want. In 1692 Dalpat Bundela defeated a numerically superior Maratha force because, as the author of Dilkusha suggests, he had some artillery.³ It was the lack of field artillery again that prevented Baji Rao I from reaping the maximum advantage of his strategic victory over the Nizam's army at Tal Bhopal. It was his artillery that saved the Mughal general from utter ruin and destruction. The Maratha army was better furnished with field artillery during the Peshwaship of Balaji Baji Rao probably when the *gardi* force was organised and the necessity of the trained battalions of infantry was recognised. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Marathas had attained some familiarity with the use of artillery, as Grose¹ tells us, but the department was still largely manned by Portuguese and Indian Christians. The pay of an ordinary Portuguese gunner varied from Rs. 12-8 to Rs. 30 per month in 1753,² as a letter addressed to Shripat Bapuji in that year shows. The following artillery men were sent to serve under him and he was instructed to pay them on the first of each month the salary shown against their name.