The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c15.90

c15.90

But Kanhoji had stronger grounds than the Portuguese suspected for soliciting a cessation of arms. In 1723 he came to blows with the Savant of Kudal with whom he had hitherto maintained friendship and amity. The quarrel arose, as Captain Alexander Hamilton informs us, out ‘of a dispute about a Prize which Connajee Angarie laid claim to’.² The Chief of Kolaba was by far the stronger of the two, and he captured and burnt the Savant’s fleet and then effected a landing near Vingurla and burnt and destroyed the villages near that port. The Savant was hardly a match for him; but Kanhoji was aware of the danger of his allying himself with his European rivals, and about this time rumours reached his ears of the machinations of his enemies at Shahu’s court.³ The Savant in his distress had already applied to the Portuguese for help, and Kanhoji considered it wise not to give them any fresh cause for offence. Prudence also induced him to volunteer proposals of peace to the English. About this time fresh dissensions had taken place between himself and the Sidi of Janjira, who appeared in 1725 before Kolaba with a large fleet of twelve Pals, two frigates and one hundred Gallivats.⁴ It is quite impossible that Kanhoji should have been ignorant of the intended invasion, and this offered an additional ground for his pacific attitude. For reasons unknown to us, the Maratha Admiral considered it unsafe to face the Sidi on the sea, and, as was usual in that age, silver served to avert the danger when steel offered little or no remedy.