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266
SHIVAJI.
[ch. X.


Maratha escort in a town 10 miles from Rajapur and rescued Mr. Gyffard by force. (Ibid, 23 February.)

The Dutch report states that about this time Shiva with his troops arrived within four days' march of Vingurla, but was driven off by the desai of Kudal (i.e., Savant-vadi), while another Maratha army which had penetrated to near Bijapur was forced to withdraw after being defeated in a bloody battle by the combined Bijapur and Golkonda troops (late March or early April 1660.) (Dutch Records, Trans., Vol. 24, No. 664 and Vol. 23, No. 651.)

The second Maratha attack on the English took place at the end of the same year, and here the Englishmen were clearly in the wrong, though the Company's official attitude was correct and neutral.

In June 1660, while Siddi Jauhar, acting on behalf of the Bijapur Government, was investing Shivaji in Panhala fort, the former purchased from the English at Rajapur some grenades "which undoubtedly will be the chief est disturbers of the besieged." Some Englishmen of Rajapur were also bribed to go to the Bijapuri camp outside Panhala and help in the bombardment of the fort, by "tossing balls with a flag that was known to be the English's.

Shivaji punished this breach of neutrality in December next, when he surprised Rajapur, plundered the English factory, and carried off four of the factors, — Henry Revington, Richard Taylor, Randolph Taylor, and Philip Gyffard, — as prisoners.