CHAPTER XIV.
Shivaji and the English merchants of the West coast.
§1. English factors of Rajapur kept in prison, 1660-63.
We have described in Chapter X how the Marathas came into collision with the English traders of Rajapur early in 1660, and how the same factory brought upon itself the vengeance of Shivaji by giving unofficial assistance to the Bijapuri army besieging the Maratha chief in the fort of Panhala five months later. In the following December Shivaji surprised Rajapur, plundered the English factory and carried off four of the factors, namely Henry Revington, Richard Taylor, Randolph Taylor, and Philip Gyffard, as prisoners to Raigarh.
While they were still at Rajapur, the Brahman agent of Shivaji told the prisoners that his master would give the English a fine port named Meate Bandar,*[1] on the coast, if they helped him in taking Danda-Rajpuri; but they declined to "discourse
- ↑ * Meate Bandar is not the name of a place, but a general term for salt-ports, it being a compound of the Marathi word mith, salt, and Persian bandar, port. The term occurs in old Marathi letters. (Vide Rajwade, viii. 22, and Sanads and Letters, 57.)
