The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c14.63

Language: English

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Shivaji, however, was resolved to prevent the Sidi’s depredations; and in order to bring force to bear upon the English, he sent Mai Naik and Daulat Khan to occupy the small and hitherto uninhabited ilsand of Kenery. The twin islands of Henery and Kenery commanded, to a certain extent, the harbour of Bombay, and once established there, it would not have been difficult to surprise the Janjira fleet. The English had by some means obtained notice of Shivaji’s design. On 4 September 1679, the Surat council issued an order to the Bombay authorities ‘that they immediately erect an English flag on the highest part of the Island (and if it may be done without any danger from the Mallabars) that a file of souldiers be kept there to guard it; and the Hunter friggat be ordered to attend upon them, plying up and downe neere the said Island giving the Commander orders, in a friendly way to acquaint those that are appointed by Sevagee, for the management of that designe, when they offer to erect their fort, that the Island belongs to His Majesty of Great Brittaine, and that none can attempt anything upon the place, without an open breach of friendship’. ² But the resolution came too late; the Marathas had acted more promptly than the English anticipated, and Mai Naik with 150 men was already in possession of the island and had raised a clumsy breastwork of dirt and stone, with guns behind it, before the English were prepared to step in.

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When requested to withdraw, he firmly replied that he had occupied the island at Shivaji's command and would not retire without his order. The Surat council resolved on 15 September to ‘repell them with force as an open enemy’. This was followed by a rash assault on the island, in which Ensign (?) Thorpe lost his vessel and his life. This disaster was followed by a naval action between the English squadron and Daulat Khan's fleet (‘consisting of upwards sixty vessells small and great’). At the first onslaught of the Maratha armada most of the English ships were struck by panic and the Dove¹ surrendered without firing a shot. Captains Keigwin and Minchin in the frigate Revenge, left alone to face the enemy, coolly awaited the Marathas. Better artillery and science prevailed in the end over number, and Daulat Khan's fleet was put to flight. The defeat of the Maratha fleet, however, did not lead to the abandonment of Kenery. The Sidi shortly appeared on the scene and began to batter the hastily built ramparts of the island but after a few days the English ceased to co-operate with him. His occupation of the sister island of Henery was not calculated to conciliate the English and although Bombay advocated a vigorous policy of hostilities, Surat counselled a more moderate policy. Their man-power was limited;

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they had been enjoined by their masters to effect economy, and the military experts they had consulted were of opinion that their resources were scarcely sufficient for the defence of Bombay. They counselled a diplomatic course of shifting the burden of war to the Sidi or the Portuguese² Government and retiring from the arena. Peace proposals from Shivaji offered an easy and honourable solution of their difficulty. Kenery was but a small island and its ownership was disputed by the Portuguese. So the Deputy Governor was instructed to send a friendly and conciliatory reply. The island was held by Shivaji's men in spite of the repeated attacks of the Sidi, and early in 1680 a treaty was concluded between Shivaji and the English.³ The occupation of Kenery and the capture of the *Dove* were the last achievements of the Maratha navy before Shivaji's death. His maritime aims were not accomplished. The Sidi's fleet remained unbeaten and the island of Janjira, a mere dot in the sea, still defied the most strenuous efforts of the Marathas. Though Shivaji's captains had often captured Portuguese ships, he had failed to extort from them freedom of navigation for merchantmen belonging to his own ports.

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The only concession that he managed to obtain was included in a treaty of 1670, whereby small boats carrying provisions and foodstuffs were permitted to ply between Karanja and Goa without a Portuguese pass.¹ This concession was persistently refused to the *Gallivats* and big coasting vessels. Shivaji's fleet was numerically superior to the fleets of European nations in Indian waters; but in artillery and in the art of navigation it was vastly inferior. Shivaji himself cannot be blamed for these deficiencies. In twenty years he could hardly expect to create a navy and bring it to perfection. He had made a beginning and a good beginning; it was for his successors to build upon the foundation he had laid. In Sambhaji and Rajaram's days the Maratha fleet continued to compel alien traders to buy its permits and its power was felt at sea even after the Mughals had conquered practically the whole of Maharashtra. But nothing more was done. In its organisation, in the type of its men-of-war, in its policy of selling *cartaz* and making prizes of merchantmen that did not possess it, and in the art and science of maritime warfare the Maratha navy remained where Shivaji had left it, until in the beginning of the next century its control definitely passed from the Chhatrapati to a family of hereditary naval chiefs.