The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c15.143

c15.143

These accounts show that the Maratha navy had not yet emerged from the primitive galley stage. The seamen had, indeed, learnt to make skilful use of their sails, but as both the English and the Portuguese agree that they always preferred a calm sea for a naval engagement, it is clear that their strategy depended rather upon oar than upon canvas. Their gunners were often foreigners; and Muslim captains were still welcomed in the Angria’s service. Inferior as it was to the fighting fleets of contemporary Europe, Sambhaji Angria’s navy enjoyed a great reputation on the Malabar coast and was considered an excellent school for naval training. Both Ismail Khan, whom the Portuguese writers delighted to style as ‘valoroso’ or valiant, and Apaji Gopal, the Commander-in-Chief of Gaikwad’s fleet, who had earned the encomiums of his Portuguese opponents by his intrepedity and skill, began their naval career in Sambhaji’s service.¹ But the Maratha navy was like a child of arrested growth. It progressed satisfactorily up to a certain stage and then further improvements stopped.