The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c12.5

c12.5

² Cosme da Guarda writes. ‘The question is still unsolved whether he substituted others for himself, or he was a magician or the devil was in his place’ (*Vida do celebre Sevagy*, p. 10.). He tries to give a rational explanation of Shivaji’s supposed presence at different places at the same moment. Oxinden wrote on 26 June 1664, ‘Sevagy is soe famously infamous for his notorious thefts that report hath made him an airy body and added wings; or else it were impossible hee could be at soe many places as hee is said to bee at, all at one time. Sometimes hee is certainly believed to be in one, and in a day or two in another place, and soe in half a dozen remote one from another; and there burns and plunders without controule.’ Sir William Foster, *English Factories in India, 1660-1664*, p. 345.