The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c15.75

c15.75

We need not go into the details of this expedition; suffice it to say, that it totally failed. Angria, forewarned of the coming danger, was well prepared to face it. The morale of the Bombay men, ‘habituated to defeat in their attacks on Angrian strongholds’, was naturally not very high. Mathews was a brave officer but did not possess tact and other qualities of leadership. The first serious reverse so infuriated him that he insulted his Portuguese colleague, and the breach between the allied armies was so great that Col. Biddulph thinks that ‘a little more enterprise on the part of the Mahrattas would have destroyed the whole force’.