CHAPTER XXII.
Commencement of the great Mahratta War – Character of Trimbuckjee Dainglia – He effects the Murder of Gungadhur Shastree – Suspicious Proceedings of the Peishwa – Trimbuckjee given up to the British Resident – His singular Escape and Machinations against the English – Remarkable Character of the Pindarries – Their predatory Incursions, destructive Proceedings, and atrocious Cruelties – Retaliation of the Rajah of Nagpore – Destruction of Pindarries by Major Lushington and other Officers – Hostile Appearances at Poonah – Precautions taken by the Resident – The Resident's Ultimatum – Humiliating Treaty forced upon the Peishwa – His Desperation – Commencement of Hostilities – Plunder and Burning of the Residency – Defeat of the Mahrattas – Flight of the Peishwa, and Surrender of Poonah.
When we look back to the days of Chunda Sahib and Salabat Jung, when Arcot and Trichinopoly were the limits of our peregrinations in the Carnatic, when Central India was a terra incognita, and the Bengal army scarcely ventured to cross the Mahratta Ditch at Calcutta, we cannot forbear smiling at the timid caution with which our statesmen and generals then ventured to put one foot before another, in a region so totally unknown to them that, for aught they could foresee, the solid earth might open and swallow them and their handful of soldiers. In contrasting that period with the one of which we are now treating, how the mind dilates, how the heart exults with triumph at the extent of our territories, the expansion of our commerce, and the glory of our arms, acquired within so short a period! And yet what were they when Lord Moira assumed the reins of government in 1814 compared with what they are at present, after a series of unrivalled wars, in which the Anglo-Indian Army has crowned its country with boundless prosperity and won for itself imperishable fame?
Nor was the war upon which we are now about to enter one of the least interesting or important of the
