The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c17.38

c17.38

Both the Marathas and the Portuguese stoutly denied the charge of piracy, and their protest was couched in almost identical words. In 1700 the Portuguese detained a vessel belonging to the Sidi of Janjira or one of his subjects. When the Sidi remonstrated with the Government of Goa, they replied that the ship had been captured on legitimate grounds, viz., failure to buy their *cartaz*. The ship was eventually restored to its owner in consideration of the friendship then subsisting between the Portuguese and the Mughal. The letter concluded with a significant sentence that reminded the Sidi that ‘the Portuguese were the sovereigns of the sea and not pirates’. ¹ The Angria retorted to his English accusers that he was not a pirate but the Admiral of the Maratha empire. To the expostulations of the Bombay Government, Henry Grose informs us, the Angria ‘made no further a satisfactory answer, than that disclaiming the title of Pirate, he assumes that of Admiral to the Mar-rajah, to whom he insisted that the sovereignty of the seas belonged, and that he was determined to maintain it, against all such as should refuse to acknowledge, or not take his passes’. ² It should be remembered that neither the *Success* nor the *Robert* nor the *Otter* had Kanhoji’s pass, and he argued that, as their owners were not English subjects, they were not protected by the treaty of 1713. In 1791 the Portuguese Secretary of State wrote to Bahiro Pant Mechendale: ‘The vessels of the *Sarkar* (i.e. Poona Government) took in the port of Angediva, a merchantman belonging to that place laden with cargo and at Chapora they robbed the canoes of the fishermen without leaving even their small sails, besides other incidents to which I do not refer, for it seems that some of these and other hostilities which I do not mention here, might have been committed by the Bhonsla, Melondim, and the Angria of Kolaba who use the banner of the Mos: Felicitious (i.e. Peshwa)’. In answer to this complaint, Gangadhar Pant, Subhedar of Gheria, wrote to the Governor of Goa: ‘The said vessel was in the sea and it got no *cartaz*, nor had it a passport, nor the banner of Your Excellency.’ ³ It was, therefore, justly captured. It is remarkable how similar are the arguments put forward by Governor Boone in his letter to Kanhoji Angria, by the Government of Goa in their correspondence with the Sidi of Janjira, by Kanhoji Angria in his letter to Captain Cornwall, and by Gangadhar Pant in his reply to the Portuguese Governor in defence of similar actions at different times. The Maratha Government, however, did not always uphold the actions of their servants. In 1763 Madhav Rao I promised to make an enquiry about the circumstances under which some Portuguese ships had been captured by his fleet and to restore them if they had been seized without sufficient reason.¹