India Under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India CompanyWheeler, James Talboys
History
India Under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India Company
Wheeler, James Talboys
India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947
One glorious battle was fought on New Year's Day, 1818, a victory of
Bombay sepoys which is celebrated in Deccan songs of triumph to this
day. A detachment of 800 Bombay sepoys was drawn up at the village of
Korygaum, on the bank of the river Bhima, near Satara, under the command
of Captain Staunton. On the opposite bank was the army of the Peishwa,
numbering 25,000 horse and 6,000 Arab infantry. Staunton had but ten
British officers and twenty-four British gunners with two six-pounders.
Staunton occupied the village, but was environed by the Peishwa's army,
and cut off from all supplies and water. The Mahrattas were mad to
capture the village. Three times they tried to storm it with rockets,
but were beaten back by sheer pluck and desperation. Raging with hunger
and thirst, Bombay sepoys and British officers and gunners fought like
heroes, whilst the Peishwa looked on in anger and despair from a
neighbouring hill. Staunton lost a third of his sepoys and eight out of
his ten officers, but the Mahrattas left six hundred killed and wounded
on the field. Next morning the Mahrattas refused to renew the fight,
and the army of the Peishwa moved away.
[Sidenote: Extinction of the Peishwa, 1818.]
Such a humiliation must have taken away all hope from the Peishwa. For
six months longer he kept out of the reach of his pursuers, but was at
last environed by British troops under Sir John Malcolm. He threw
himself on the mercy of the British government, and eventually talked
over Sir John Malcolm, as he had done a year or two previously in the
matter of the three fortresses. From feelings of pity for an Asiatic
prince who had ruined himself by his own treachery, Malcolm gave his
personal guarantee that the British government would pay a pension to
the conquered Peishwa of 80,000_l._ a year. Lord Hastings was extremely
angry at such a charge upon the yearly revenue, but would not withhold
his sanction to Malcolm's guarantee.[19] Since then there has been no
Peishwa of the Mahrattas. The ex-ruler lived in idle luxury near
Cawnpore, whilst his dominions were incorporated with the Bombay
Presidency. A futile attempt was made by Lord Hastings to revive the
extinct Raja of Satara, but in the course of years the Raja was
intriguing like the Peishwa, and the principality was eventually annexed
by Lord Dalhousie.
[Sidenote: Pacification and protection of Rajputana, 1818.]
The crowning event in the administration of Lord Hastings was the
renewal of protective treaties with the princes of Rajputana. The raids
of the Mahrattas, which had been the curse and agony of Rajputana for
nearly a century, were stopped for ever. The territory of Ajmere, in the
heart of Rajputana, which had been successively the head-quarters of
Mogul and Mahratta suzerainty, was taken over by the British government,
and is to this day the head-quarters of the Agent to the Viceroy for the
states of Rajputana, and a centre of British supremacy and paramount
power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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