The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c14.51

c14.51

The expedition was organised on a very elaborate scale, and caused much anxiety and speculation at Surat and Bombay, but it ended in nothing. In November 1670, Shivaji assembled a vast fleet of 160 sail at Nagaon³ and mobilised a considerable army. The army and the fleet were supplied with provision for forty days and all the necessary instruments of mining, such as ‘pickaxes, shovells and crows of iron’. They were ready to depart at a moment’s notice, but their destination was absolutely unknown. Bombay had been alarmed in the previous month by the appearance of a big Maratha fleet near the harbour, so the Deputy Governor and his council were naturally suspicious of the intention of their neighbour, particularly as their relations of late had been considerably strained by the Sidi’s fleet ‘wintering’ in the English island. The Bombay authorities wrote to their friends at Surat on 17 November: ‘Where he aimes wee cannot tell or imagine, but tis good in such case to be jealous knowing who he is, for yesterday was in this place a Bramen of his (who came as wee since understand from him directly) and meeting some friends falls into discourse, and they enquiring what news he told them his master was bound upon some desperate designe nominated for 8 places which he thought his master must aime at, amongst Bombay one, but his business here as he said, was to get some pilots, he stayed not above 2 hours on the island, for had he made any longer stay, wee would assuredly have knowne more or secured his person’.¹