The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c15.130

c15.130

This discomfiture must have convinced Sambhaji of the necessity of some alliances even if he had been totally ignorant of a clause aimed against him in the treaty which the Portuguese concluded later with the new Peshwa. His relations with the English and the Portuguese were equally bad, but these were the only two powers whose alliance was worth securing. Though he had captured the *Derby* in 1735, he had a taste of the English naval power when his fleet fled before Commodore Bagwell’s squadron in 1738, and in 1739 he made overtures to the English Government for peace. His father in a similar situation would not have been very arrogant about the terms; but Sambhaji was not endowed with his father's diplomatic moderation. ‘He demanded that the English should provide all their trading vessels with his passes, and pay him 200,000 Rupees annually for the free navigation of the seas.’ These terms were at once rejected as ‘absurdly extravagant’.¹ The next year his unsuccessful encounter with the *Harrington* did not improve his relations with Bombay; and, convinced of the futility of his attempt to win the friendship of the English, he turned his attention southwards. He was not at peace with the Portuguese, and in November 1741 his fleet again fought, though without success, a Portuguese vessel. But alliance and hostilities in those days were always uncertain and lasted just as long as they suited the interests and the convenience of the parties concerned, and Sambhaji shared at least a common hatred with the Portuguese. Neither party had any reason to love the Peshwa. Even during the fateful years that preceded the fall of Bassein, while openly fighting against the rulers of Goa, the two Angria brothers are proved by some letters in the eighth volume of the *Livros dos Reis Visinho's* to have been secretly coquetting with them. His approaches, therefore, could not be characterised as abrupt. What terms he actually offered we do not know, for his letter has not been preserved; but the answer that the Marquis of Lourical addressed to him on 2 December² made a complimentary reference to his father ‘the great Canogi Angria’ and the ‘firmness of his word’. Sambhaji was invited to depute a reliable person to Goa with a view to concluding a treaty against their common enemies. But this letter probably did not reach Sambhaji, who died ten days later on 12 December 1741.